log#3_ A sound funeral for migratory birds

In the field research, I noticed that the most common animal sounds in the zoo are bird calls. Compared to other animals, some of them are relatively unaffected by spatial limitations.

I saw a big nest built by a stork above the railway in the zoo. At that moment, a picture came to my mind: a bird flying into a jungle of noise, getting lost in the sound waves filled with incomprehensible information. Its body gradually become a skeleton.

In fact, an increasing number of birds are gathering together at the zoo, and bird calls have become the so-called noise. They need to communicate using higher frequencies, adjusting the timing and rhythm of their social interactions. When we perceive them as engaging in a grand chorus, it could be a competition within the avian world, where they vie to have their voices recognized by their peers.

I realized that birds, as their original habitats are continuously destroyed and they are forced to coexist with humans, face many unresolved challenges. They can only increase their chances of survival by continuously adapting, especially for migratory birds. Death is lurking in the changing. On their way to coexist with other species, birds may have met their own death or the death of their kind. We can feel their emotions when we see scenes of death, which may include sadness, fear, anxiety and pain.

These explorations exerted lots of influence on my decision, gradually fostering the idea of holding a sound funeral for migratory birds. Mourning the birds in a sonic way feels like a natural thing to me. Jorien van der Laan, a neurobiologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, has discussed how aspects of human language learning are similar to the way songbirds learn to sing, although we haven't observed similar behavior in apes.