Head In The Clouds

Caitlyn emailed me from Princeton ‘I am delighted to let you know about this one-of-a-kind illustrated guide to clouds, cloud formations, and the artists who painted them, publishing in April this year. I really feel that this book would be an excellent one for review and perfect for readers of Another Bird Blog’. Caitlyn is beginning to understand birders. I replied by return, “I agree Caitlyn”. 

 

Clouds - Princeton

 

The author of Clouds: How to Identify Nature’s Most Fleeting Forms is Edward Graham an award-winning lecturer and atmospheric scientist, latterly Editor-in-Chief of Weather, the flagship journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, from 2019 to 2024. His research interests include clouds, historical meteorology, and the influence of weather on astronomy. He is presently based at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. 

Although not an obvious bird book I saw a tenuous link to birding that other bibliophiles might not. I could also envisage that many birder readers would enjoy learning about clouds or why in Britain we have more than our fair share of clouds. And rain. 

Most birders spend waking hours with their head in the clouds, looking upwards and listening, to where clouds often hide the real objects of their affections, their feathered friends. Birds fly above clouds, below clouds and through clouds, winged creatures hidden by those mysterious clouds, the visible masses of tiny liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere, floating in the sky at differing heights. 

“Clouds that wander through the sky, Sometimes low and sometimes high; In the darkness of the night. In the sunshine warm and bright”. 

Sometimes, birds are seen dropping through cloud and to then land virtually at your feet. Which birder has not read about the Great Fall of September 1965 when tens of thousands of migrating songbirds were swept across the North Sea, deposited from thick clouds to land all along the Suffolk coast?  This phenomenon of clouds releasing thousands of birds happens mostly on the east coast of Britain but can occasionally be observed around our Lancashire coast in late autumn when migratory thrushes are on the move. 

Knowledge and observation of clouds, their formations, height and direction of travel, all combined with a feel for reading the weather are useful tools in a birder’s armoury, skills that make for often memorable days when deciding that a cloudy rain-spattered day is not so bad and that heading out birding may turn up unexpected goodies. 

I was correct. When I checked the Clouds Contents and Index for a mention or two of birds I found none. Not to worry there’s a number of other books about birds and the weather, perhaps the best known being Weather and Bird Behaviour by Norman Elkins, or Birds and Weather by Stephen Moss. 

Clouds - Princeton

Clouds - Princeton

And then in the absence of birds I adopted a different approach and decided to just learn about clouds for a while, especially since the book combines in a unique way, clouds, science and another interest of mine, art. The book combines art and science while showing how to use meteorological techniques to identify the mysterious ever changing sizes, shapes, layers, movement, arrangement and texture of the many colours and varieties of cloud. 

John Ruskin Clouds - Princeton

Taking a lead from typical field guides the  chapters of Clouds are divided into a sort of taxonomic list - The Science of Clouds pages 42 to 135, Mid-Level Cloud Species 136 to 189 and for the cloud listers and twitchers - yes they do exist, at pages 190 to 215, Rare and Unique Clouds. 

And I discovered there is a Cloud Appreciation Society. Check it out at https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/. 

These are lengthy chapters indeed but pages where the text is interspersed with shorter more detailed information, a healthy 140 illustrations, diagrams, plus many reproductions of historic art to elaborate particular points for the reader. I found myself enjoying the art examples and skipping through the sometimes slow moving text in favour of the colour and drama of cloudy skies as portrayed by many famous artists. 

The artists are many, including John Constable’s famous sky studies, the painter of light J.M.W. Turner, the darkening precipitation of Gustav Courbet, Monet’s broken colour, the vivid skies of Vincent Van Gogh. Not forgetting Thomas Cole, he who wisely remarked that clouds “are the soul of all scenery”. 

Starry, starry night 

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze 

Swirling clouds in violet haze 

Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of China blue 

Colors changing hue 

Morning fields of amber grain 

Weathered faces lined in pain 

Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand 

Van Gogh's swirling clouds

It was while enjoying the art pages that I finally found a reference to birds and birders. I empathised with the image of Nacreous clouds as portrayed by Edvard Munch in the famous emotional work The Scream and understood why he was screaming. The BBC got it wrong again, the clouds roll in, rain begins and bang goes another birding day, all a birder can do is to scream. 

Edvard Munch - Nacreous cloud

Eddy Graham’s style is an engaging narrative for even the most unscientific reader, mixing his story with essays on the physicists and artists who have explored clouds or pictured them for posterity in art galleries the world over. 

The chosen artists who use cloud to dramatic and often spectacular effect are many and varied with splendid often famous examples found inside the 140 colour pages. This twist to mix the subjects of science clouds with actual and historic art proves to be a triumph of imagination.

Clouds - Princeton

Clouds: How to Identify Nature’s Most Fleeting Forms and the information within provides a learning curve for birders who perhaps enjoy clouds but not necessarily the spits and spots of rain. Clouds are an ephemeral but necessary element of their pastime without thinking too deeply about interactions between the inseparable weather and cloud. 

And lets face it, all birders complain when a bright blue sky allows birds to travel at great height and to so evade both optics and their ever alert hearing. 

Clouds is a little out of the ordinary as a bird watcher’s book especially so when birders increasingly use the Internet and birdy news and even bird identification apps rather than the written word. However the modest sum of £25 for this bird related book will surely expand upon their knowledge and understanding of the birds, the weather, clouds and how they interact to make all of our lives richer. 

Price: $29.95/£25.00 

ISBN: 9780691262482 

Published: Apr 22, 2025 

Pages: 224 

Size:8.5 x 10.5 in. 

140 colour illustrations.