Tagged: Birds

A young man stands in front of a water landscape at sunset pointing a large microphone with a fluffy grey "dead cat" windscreen off to the right to record environmental sounds.

The Marketplace of Environmental Sounds

How is the musical history of animal imitation caught up in racism, sexism, and imperialist nostalgia? From classical music to whistling, this conversation explores the art and ethics of imitating, recording, and selling the sounds of the nonhuman world.

A peacock stands on reddish earth in the center of the image. His briight blue and green plumage fills the enttire frame.

Birds on the Brain in the Ancient World

In ancient Greece and Rome, birds filled more than the skies. Jeremy Mynott’s new book explores birds in ancient imaginations and the science, pastimes, art, and literature they inspired.

Starlicide

In this meditation on the pesticide Starlicide, a poet explores how human hubris leads us to control nature’s “nuisances” and how we fail to see their beauty.

A parakeet named Punky perched on piano keys. A modified version of a photo by Amyra Moon, March 2011.

Can a Piano Sing a Birdsong?

The French composer Olivier Messaien attempted to reproduce the calls of 80 European birds in a three-hour piece for solo piano. Did he succeed?