A conservationist plans to take flight this autumn alongside thousands of swans as they make a 4,500-mile journey from the Russian arctic to the UK.
Sacha Dench will fly by paramotor - paragliding with a propeller strapped to her back - to get as close as possible to flying as the swans do.
Each night she will land close by to observe their habits and hazards.
She hopes to shed light on the steady decline of Bewick's swans whose numbers have halved in the last 20 years.
The first part of the journey will take her across the Russian tundra, a desolate land of extreme weather and home to polar bears, bears and wolves.
There were no roads for the first 1,000km which meant a ground support crew was not an option, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Ms Dench, a former free-diving champion, must rely instead on good weather forecasting and nomadic reindeer breeders for help, and will sleep in small huts built by hunters for shelter.
She will meet communities along the swans' flight path across 11 countries, including reindeer herders, farmers and hunters.