House of Little Birdies

"You love the little birds, I think?  I see you've managed with a fond research to find their tiny claws a roomy perch!"

- Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand

This month, the Smithsonian National Zoo reopens it's long-awaited, newly-renovated Bird House.  Rethemed as Experience Migration, the structure is certainly a far different building than the one that closed to the public some years back.  The old Bird House was filled with many single-species enclosures that housed a variety of birds from around the world.  The new one is taken up with three smaller walk-through aviaries, all featuring American birds.  (The outside yards of the building continue to display some of the larger species that were previously present, such as cassowary, Kori bustard, American flamingo, and whooping crane).

What is truly surprising about the selection of birds inside the building is that the roster doesn't include any "rock-star" bird species.  There are no penguins or puffins, no raptors, only a single species of small parrot.  Instead, one gallery depicts a Delaware Bay shoreline, dominated by a mixed-flock of shorebirds scurrying across the beaches, while horseshoe crabs lurk at the bottom of salty pools.  A second is a prairie pothole, with the most prominent residents being a flock of ducks.  The third, what was once the tropical rainforest walkthrough aviary of the old Bird House, is still a rainforest, but this time reimagined as a shade-grown coffee plantation.  The stars here are the myriad little migratory songbirds that travel from the north to the tropics every year - many species that (despite their native status) I have never seen before, in a zoo or in the wild.

Experience Migration has the potential to be a controversial exhibit among bird keepers.  First, many of the birds were sourced from the wild, as there were few species with zoo-based populations to draw from.  Second, it devotes a lot of space to species that are not managed by AZA breeding programs, which can seem like a waste of space to birdkeepers at a time when there are so few buildings like this that could accommodate smaller bird species.  Thirdly, there is a sense of what was lost.  The Bird House at National Zoo is where I saw my first bird of paradise, by first kiwi, my first hornbills, and many other exotic, exciting species.  I will miss all of those.

Still, the building has proven an exciting, interesting venture.  Firstly, I do appreciate and admire the conservation messaging and the call to action.  There's not much that the average zoo visitor can do, say, to help preserve the imperiled birdlife of the Marianas Islands - but collectively, we can do great things to improve the lot of the increasingly-rare North American songbirds that are disappearing from our landscape.  Secondly, though, I admire the bold decision of basing an enormous new project on small, underappreciated, and unsung species.  North American migratory birds (excepting a few large and spectacular species, like whooping cranes and trumpeter swans) are often overlooked by zoos.  Too many zoos, I think, if given the money for a new bird house would do penguins, flamingos, macaws, and maybe a big tropical aviary and call it a day.  

Experience Migration, on the other hand, challenges visitors to show some appreciation and awareness of the small and unseen among us.  It reminds us that beauty doesn't just come in big packages, but in the form of tanagers, warblers, and buntings flitting around us, unnoticed.  It also helps raise awareness about how, at the same time we've been ignoring those species, we've also been silently losing them.  It reminds, however, that the loss isn't inevitable, and that, with enough conviction, we can reverse this trend and help bring small birds back into our lives.