My wife is a supporter of the Woodland Trust, a commendable woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom. Every few months, we receive Broadleaf, their official magazine, and it’s always a pleasure to flip through pages filled with lovely pictures of nature and animals. You will probably agree that it’s about the last place where I’d expect to stumble across one of my musical idols: funk legend Nile Rodgers.

With a string of dancefloor hits spanning from his own work with Chic to Daft Punk, via Madonna, David Bowie and Duran Duran, plus some interesting, overlooked curveballs like David Lee Roth’s ‘Your Filthy Little Mouth‘, Rodgers is simply one of the most gifted producers and songwriters of all time. One of the few people who would make me buy a record just because I spotted his name in the credits. He’s definitely not, however, the first person you’d expect to find discussing birds and oak trees.

Turns out We Are Family, the charity foundation Rodgers started in the wake of 9/11, actively supports the Woodland Trust, so it’s not unusual for him to visit the UK and spend some time in nature. This time it was the Faughan Valley in Northern Ireland; on a previous visit, it was Lincolnshire.

“I’m 73 years old, and I’ve decided I want to learn something new every day”, he boldly confessed in the full-page interview included in the magazine. Coming from someone who has literally nothing left to prove, such a statement sounds admirable. Even more so if you’ve read his memoir ‘Le Freak’ and know the rollercoaster life this man has lived.

One thing he learned this time is that some birds — swifts — can fly 6,000 miles in one go. “I’m gonna write a song, saying I wish I had the power of a swift”. But when you think about the amount of great music this man has been involved with, you have to wonder whether he doesn’t already have plenty of superpowers.

From wild life to wildlife.