Urban Birds

By Uri, October 27, 2017

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A person is said to be free as a bird when they’re free to do whatever they like, go wherever they like. Birds are not bound by gravity. They can fly almost anywhere they like, or at least we imagine that they can, and for long stretches of time, they perch. In the wild, birds perch on trees, branches, rocks, juts. In the Urban landscape birds perch on oddly shaped man-made trees.

These constructs serve one function for mankind, and completely separate, independent function for birds. One may be a poorly maintained lighting fixture.

Another may be an intricate geometric design of electric devices mounted a the top of an electricity pole.

Yet another construction appears to be part of a sign on a road, directing drivers – while its supports offer birds long metal branches where they can congregate.

A fence of a lookout point serves this flock of ravens as, well, a lookout point.

The bird’s eye view is not just how we see things when we look from above. The bird’s view of the urban landscape differs from ours in what the various components of the landscape mean and how they may be useful, or dangerous, to them.

A favorite place for birds to perch appears to be on public sculptures. Somehow it always seems as if that’s a favorite place for them to come together, exchange news, socialize. The sculptures are almost never seen in their pure form. Sometimes, a bird finds a spot on a sculpture where the local interaction between the forms is peculiar, and just for a moment, becomes a surprising new sculpture.