Traveling Birds, Traveling Bird Exhibit

I was standing on top of a tall, hill-like jetty near Rockkport, Massachusetts, gazing out at the Gulf of Maine, when I heard a short rattling call from somewhere above me in the blue sky. It was early in the afternoon on a warm autumn day. The bird diversity was not overwhelming. The expected herring gulls glided by. Far out to sea on a human-made jetty of massive blocks of stone sat a preponderance of great black-backed gulls. A single northern gannet beat its long wings in the distance.

And then there was the rattle call again.

I spotted it then, a high, lone bird. It gave a gentle “tew” call and then another rattle. A snow bunting? No, the bird had no white patches in the wings. Oh, a Lapland longspur! Then the speck disappeared into the distance, heading toward land.

Both snow buntings and Lapland longspurs breed across the Arctic and then fly south for the winter. But usually not until later in October or November. What may have driven this bird to drop south earlier? Had the bird been in Nunavut or Greenland just a few days before? My mind turned northward.

I was recently in Massachusetts where I spoke about Boreal birds and conservation at the Essex County Ornithological Club, a bird club founded in 1916. The event was in conjunction with a new traveling exhibition currently hosted at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem. The exhibition is sponsored by Audubon and  focused on the Boreal Forest biome. It is called Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest, and it will be at the museum until September 2026. It’s full of big, beautiful photos and other imagery, interactive games for kids (and kids-at-heart), and the amazing sounds of birds from the Boreal Forest softly permeate the soundscape, making it feel like a calming oasis. The exhibition is organized by season, and this version (it is a Smithsonian Traveling exhibit, making its way around the country) has a gorgeous moss wall, a historic canoe model, and an art installation by a local Indigenous artist.

The exhibition highlights many elements of the ecological as well as cultural importance of the Boreal Forest biome including sections on caribou, fish, and, of course, birds. And it highlights many Indigenous voices throughout. One corner has a short video that has wonderful interviews with Indigenous leaders as well as non-Indigenous academics and conservationists (including me!).

It’s well worth a visit at any time. If you are, by any chance, among the throngs of people going to Salem around Halloween time, the exhibit makes a welcome respite from the busier (and spookier) activities happening in the rest of town. 

I heartily recommend a visit to Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.