Agnieszka Szczotka

Birds

In spring 2025, Agnieszka Szczotka joined the Roberts Institute of Art Residency in Scotland.

While in residence, she began writing a text following a visit to a nearby RSPB site at Loch of Kinnordy. What began as a moment of noticing her inability to identify the birds she encountered unfolded into a deeper reflection on her father — a keen birdwatcher — and on the limits of language, memory and understanding.

Birds

Sky is a pale blue tissue hung evenly between the trees. We are having breakfast in the sun. Sour summer fruits, defrosted overnight and mixed into the warmth of the porridge, distort our mouths. Still fragrant of burnt, roasted seeds, they crack between the teeth. Listening to the bird song, I can only distinguish a crow. Nothing else. In the language of birds, I am illiterate.

I think of my father in his camouflage clothing, hiding in the bushes like a pervert. He holds onto his camera, long heavy lenses pointing into the same sky, waiting to capture his prey and I wonder if the same song reaches his ears. I wonder if he would have been able to distinguish the singers, since he has been gawking at them for years during his many escapades into forests, wetlands and meadows. But even if he told me their names, I wouldn’t have known them in English without aiding myself with an online translator. This is a language within a language I have never learnt. 

There is a Polish novel that I dip in and out off before falling asleep.¹ I open it at random. Each poetic chapter can be its own, despite a storyline that unfolds over time. The narrator cares after her sick grandmother who, close to death, wants to surround herself with the living, and tempts all the living she can find into her bedroom. Living being plants, spiders, ants and shit eating flies. She wants to know about the birds, so she sticks a finger into a Collins bird guide and chooses one. Her granddaughter is tasked with reading a description out loud and making sounds like the bird (she) is reading about. The granddaughter complies; grandmother repeats the sound. A new language is created. Neither human nor a bird one, but a hybrid. I repeat.

Małgorzata Lebda, Łakome (Kraków, Wydawnictwo Znak, 2023)

Later that day we drive to the nearest Loch. From a carpark, we take a narrow path through the woods that leads to a landing ended with a Gullery — a low hut made of dark wood, which looks like it was built from the theatre flats. We open the door and go inside; it’s a bird hide. Narrow viewing slots run along front walls, framing the view in front of us. On the wall behind us hang two bird identification posters with drawings and names, specifying which time of the year one can spot a particular bird. In the left corner, on one of the cushioned benches placed by the window, sits a man. On the shelf in front of him lies a camera with long heavy lenses and a pair of binoculars. His presence here sets the tone that is one of stillness and calm. We sit down in front of the window on the other side of the space and take in the view predesigned for us. The body of water is all ripples.

Out of nowhere, two swifts appear above the water and speed towards the hut. They come so close that for a split of a second, I worry they will crash into the hut, but in the last moment they take off into the air above us. Their song, loud at first, disappears in the distance.

The next day I go back to the Gullery on my own. As I enter I am faced with their backs. Long heavy lenses point towards the loch. There’s five of them inside occupying all the padded comfortable benches. Their hair and beards are grey. They wear caps and glasses and vests in various shades of olive, khaki and navy. If you’d asked them to undress and put their clothes together in a pile you could mix and match at random.

I sit down on the remaining bench, the one below the lowest window. On the wood above the shelf are lovers’ initials inscribed with a sharp object, and a date — 8TH MAY 2003. 

A bird appears at a distance. The hut fills with click-click-click-click... A surround sound. They shoot in unison. Their shutter speeds are fast. Their own private bird calls. And when a feathery celebrity disappears — there comes back the calm. We are stationed like this suspended in time. The body of water is all ripples.

A bird appears at a distance. They lift their cameras then resign. One big sigh. False alarm — they call among themselves. I enquire what is it that they are waiting for and they say they are waiting for the rare birds that nest here between April and September, like ospreys and marsh harriers.  

People come and go, but somehow there is always five of them and one of me. But one of them sticks around, the man we saw the other day sitting in the corner. I ask him if he comes here often. Almost every day — he says. He goes to other lochs, but in this one can see the ospreys fishing. He picks up his camera and shows me the photos of two birds frozen in time, one of them holds onto a fish, the other one tries to intercept the prey. One is a resident, one is an intruder – he says, and he might as well be talking about me. I am a resident and I am an intruder. I think of my father showing me his prey on Facebook. It’s a reoccurring act; I listen to his bird stories and learn about specific sites where they were photographed. If he annoys me and I want to be cruel, I punish him by refusing to look at the birds.

A couple of mallards come close to the hut.  

I feel very watched — says one of them, a green feathered one. 
Don’t worry doll, they are not interested in us common ducks. 

I marvel at commonality. 

The day after, I go back to the loch. Sky is an intense blue — it’s a hot day. The hut is empty, and all the windows are closed. It seems like no one has been here today, as the air inside is thick and unfiltered by the world outside. The loch is quiet, with just a few mute swans scattered outside. Their wings slap the surface of the water at various intervals, breaking the silence of the loch for brief moments. I sit still for an unspecified amount of time. I am disappointed. Then at the distance a bird appears and dives into the water at speed, before disappearing into thin air carrying his prey. The body of water is all ripples.