{"id":23143,"date":"2023-03-21T12:40:05","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T12:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=23143"},"modified":"2023-03-21T12:40:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T12:40:05","slug":"wild-isles-starling-murmuration-in-bbc-documentary-reveals-as-much-about-people-as-it-does-about-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/wild-isles-starling-murmuration-in-bbc-documentary-reveals-as-much-about-people-as-it-does-about-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Isles: starling murmuration in BBC documentary reveals as much about people as it does about\u00a0birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a style=\"font-size: 14px;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/people\/ss37262\">Samuel Shaw<\/a><span style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #414141;\"> is a lecturer in art history at The Open University and a self-confessed fan of the BBC\/OU co production, Wild Isles. Here he talks about how fascinating and significant he finds the way humans look at nature &#8211; the art of birdwatching.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sitting on the sofa, watching starlings. There are thousands of them circling above and around me, swirling into spectacular, ever-shifting shapes. They curve and loop in a hypnotic dance, merging at times into thick knots of winding blackness.<\/p>\n<p>The sound is equally astonishing: a wave of wing beats that pulses as the starlings snake across the sky. This compelling communal performance, known as a murmuration, culminates in the act of roosting. It\u2019s the grand show put on before the starlings settle in for a winter night.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/uV54oa0SyMc?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><em><em><em><span class=\"caption\">A starling murmuration<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It takes some effort or luck to witness a murmuration of starlings outside, but from the comfort of my house \u2013 and within the frame of a television screen \u2013 I can access them easily.<\/p>\n<p>The second episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p0f0t5dp\">Wild Isles<\/a>, which premiered on the BBC last week and which was produced in partnership with The Open University, features an especially memorable and surprising sequence of starlings roosting on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.<\/p>\n<p>Sequences such as this, filmed using technology including drones and night cameras, are not just good value as entertainment, but are critical tools when it comes to understanding bird behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>In the last few months, the BBC has also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/topics\/c66pdw2n70dt\">published several videos<\/a> of murmurations filmed across the United Kingdom, mostly shot by amateur filmmakers. These are equally valuable resources, not least because they foreground the humans behind the camera.<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t just see the birds here, but we get to hear the live reactions of people to the birds. This reminds us that a murmuration is an increasingly social event, exemplifying what <a href=\"https:\/\/oro.open.ac.uk\/56977\/1\/morrisORO.pdf\">cultural geographer Andy Morris<\/a> of The Open University calls: \u201cenvironmental entanglement between humans and non-humans\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The spectacle of the murmuration tells us as much about people as it does about birds.<\/p>\n<h2>The art of bird watching<\/h2>\n<p>As an art historian, I find the questions of why and how humans look at animals fascinating and significant. What does it mean to sit on a sofa watching starlings?<\/p>\n<p>Wild Isles is part of a long and complex tradition of representing or framing wildlife that includes a wide variety of images and objects. As I watched the episode, I wondered what a comparable experience might have been, say, 200 years ago.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center \"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When people couldn\u2019t film birds, they drew or painted them, usually in such a way as to communicate complex information about appearance and behaviour, but not so much as to seem artless.<\/p>\n<p>Cornelis van Hardenbergh\u2019s watercolour painting, Two Starlings (c.1800), is a good example of this. It portrays a male and female starling in brilliant detail. The two birds, probably drawn from dead specimens, are carefully posed in a scenic landscape.<\/p>\n<p>As a static image, so clearly dictated by the priorities of its human viewers, I can understand why this painting might not attract a large audience today. But I think there is much to be gained by comparing such images with their contemporary equivalents.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-right zoomable\"><figcaption>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Not only does it draw attention to the framing that still takes place within filmed representations of wildlife, but it can remind us of what is missing when we view animals through moving images, not least the opportunity to consider the birds at our leisure \u2013 and in silence.<\/p>\n<p>Spend a few minutes with Van Hardenbergh\u2019s painting and you might find it every bit as thrilling as a video of a murmuration. Van Hardenbrugh\u2019s starlings are part of a group of images and objects that art historians have often struggled to classify. Is this art or does it belong to the history of science?<\/p>\n<p>Paintings such as this can be found both in the collections of natural history museums and fine art museums (this example comes from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam).<\/p>\n<p>What it means to look at an animal is the kind of question, ultimately, that requires knowledge of several disciplines. It challenges art historians to brush up on their biology. It also points to the vital role that art and visual culture have played \u2013 and should still play \u2013 within the natural sciences.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/rn-SR5M-Rms?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><em><em><em><span class=\"caption\">Art and Climate Change<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/em>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I\u2019m part of an interdisciplinary research group called <a href=\"https:\/\/fass.open.ac.uk\/research\/groups\/open-ecologies\">Open Ecologies<\/a> and one of our current projects, <a href=\"https:\/\/ordo.open.ac.uk\/Open_Ecologies\">Art and Climate Change<\/a>, considers the role that historic art can play in educating people about ecological breakdown. We believe that objects from the past, such as paintings, can be just as valuable as educational tools as videos created using the latest technologies.<\/p>\n<p>We want to bring together objects and images from natural history and fine art museums, and to combine ideas from a range of disciplines, to tackle big questions about the way humans represent and understand non-human animals and habitats.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also been putting together an <a href=\"https:\/\/artuk.org\/discover\/curations\/wild-isles-in-art\">online exhibition<\/a>, which showcases the drama and diversity of UK collections, focusing on representations of species that feature in the BBC Wild Isles series.<\/p>\n<p>Each week new items will be added. This week I\u2019ve included some starlings: including a stunning <a href=\"https:\/\/artuk.org\/discover\/artworks\/starlings-coming-in-to-roost-56273\/search\/actor:floyd-jimmy-18981974\/page\/1\/view_as\/grid\">painting<\/a> of starlings by the Northumberland artist Jimmy Floyd. I believe the painting complements the moving images of murmurations with which we have become familiar.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no stunning detail here: no extraordinary camerawork, no radical insights into bird behaviour. But as a representation of an experience, the painting is compelling. There have been, and are, many ways of seeing starlings \u2013 and they all have something to tell us.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/201836\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/wild-isles-starling-murmuration-in-bbc-documentary-reveals-as-much-about-people-as-it-does-about-birds-201836\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main picture credit: Philip Reeve for Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Samuel Shaw is a lecturer in art history at The Open University and a self-confessed fan of the BBC\/OU co production, Wild Isles. Here he talks about how fascinating and significant he finds the way humans look at nature &#8211; the art of birdwatching. I\u2019m sitting on the sofa, watching starlings. There are thousands of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":23144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[869,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-23143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-literature-music","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}