Dr Chima Nwaogu visited the Animal Ecology Unit at the Evolutionsbiologisk centrum (EBC) at Uppsala University, Sweden, to present the 2025 Christer Hemborg lecture. He gave a research lecture on why Afrotropical birds breed when they do, based on analyses of breeding records derived from Major John Colebrook-Robjent’s egg collection currently held at the Livingstone Museum. He explored how the effects of pre-rain tree green-up and rainfall onset differentially drive invertebrate and grass seed abundance, influencing multiple seasonal bird breeding patterns throughout the year.