Birds, a constant presence even within the urban environment, are part of the ‘nature’ with which we are most familiar.
Yet they remain, curious to us: their colours, their behaviours and their songs – their beauty.
In the manner of the canary down the mine, the state of bird species is one litmus test of the health of the environment as a whole.
Anxiety about the global environmental crisis factors into the interest in birds as a subject, along with a deeper ethics of wonder – appreciation, respect and responsibility.
Not only are birds part of the natural world, they are also part of the cultural and symbolic world that we have built upon it.
