bird box essay

Welcome to the Lehigh University Press

New in paperback.

Christian Social Activism and Rule of Law in Chinese Societies

Manuscript Proposals

Interested in submitting a manuscript proposal?

New Release

Written in a readable style and beautifully edited, Poe and Women is a valuable resource on women’s creative and intellectual responses to Poe’s life and work. — Dana Medoro, professor of English, University of Manitoba

Michael A. Musmanno: Lawyer, Legislator, Judge, and Showman

Featured Titles

Recent Praise for LUP Books

Placing Charlotte Smith , Edited by Elizabeth A. Dolan and Jacqueline M. Labbe

Dolan and Labbe’s wide-ranging yet cohesive collection of essays offers a comprehensive and convincing breadth that succeeds in its mission of placing Charlotte Smith. Beyond Smithian scholarship, the volume comes at a prescient time.

-- Heather Heckman-McKenna University of Missouri-Columbia

Wife of Bath in Afterlife: Ballads to Blake , by Betsy Bowden

Bowden delves into each case study so expansively that at the end of reading the book, the reader has been immersed in many different eighteenth-century cultural worlds. This is an immensely learned and valuable book that dares to be different and, as a result, breaks new ground.

-- Marion Turner, Jesus College, University of Oxford

Our Osage Hills: Toward an Osage Ecology and Tribalography of the Early Twentieth Century , Edited by Michael Snyder

Our Osage Hills: Toward an Osage Ecology and Tribalography of the Early Twentieth Century  is a significant work. Snyder uses Mathews’ columns as a window into Mathews’ understanding of the Osage, its geology, its flora and fauna, as well as its human inhabitants. -- Ruby Hansen Murray,  Osage News

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Last year, Netflix dropped the high-budget “ Bright ” just before the holidays and it turned out to be a pretty massive sci-fi hit for the company, even if critics hated it. So, apparently, futuristic action movies are now going to be what the company gives us for Christmas every year. How’s this year’s cinematic sci-fi stocking stuffer, "Bird Box"? It’s imperfect, but you probably won’t be returning it.

Undercooked metaphors about motherhood and a mishandled climax aside, there’s enough to like in Susanne Bier ’s “Bird Box,” premiering on Netflix after a limited theatrical release today. Most of its strength emerges from a well-directed ensemble, one able to convey the high concept of a nightmarish situation without losing their relatable humanity. Lazy critics and viewers will compare it to “ A Quiet Place ” (I've already seen it called "A Blind Place"), but this is a piece that actually draws more from “ Stephen King ’s The Mist,” another tale of the paranoia that invades a group of strangers when they’re dealing with both the unknown and the worry that they may never again see the outside world or fully understand what's hiding in it. I'm a sucker for King-inspired things, and this one hits that chord well enough to be worth a look over your Christmas break. In particular, Sandra Bullock does typically solid work, buoyed by a great supporting cast that includes the should-be-a-star Trevante Rhodes , Jacki Weaver , Danielle Macdonald , Sarah Paulson , and John Malkovich .   

Based on Josh Malerman ’s novel, “Bird Box” intercuts between two time periods—about five years after the end of the world and in the first days when everything collapsed. It opens in the nightmarish present, but actually spends more time in flashbacks with Malorie (Bullock), an expectant mother unsure about whether or not she’ll form a connection with her baby. She expresses as much to her sister Jessica (Paulson) on the way to a meeting with her obstetrician, as the two discuss reports of mass suicides on the other side of the world. And then “whatever” is happening over there comes home as people start to hurl themselves out of windows and into oncoming traffic. These early scenes of absolute chaos are well-handled by Bier and honestly terrifying. She captures complete chaos on what appears to be a relatively limited budget, realizing the power of stark imagery—a woman bashing her head into a glass window or another calmly getting into the driver’s seat of a burning car—over the CGI overload we so often see in post-apocalyptic movies.

What is driving the mass suicides? Anyone who is outside “sees something,” although what they see is left marvelously undefined. Whatever it is causes their eyes to go all psychedelic and they take their own lives. (Well, most of them do. But that’s for later in the movie.) A small band of survivors takes shelter, including the irascible Douglas (Malkovich), also-pregnant Olympia (Macdonald), excitable Charlie ( LilRel Howery ), and inevitable love interest Tom (Rhodes). As they run of out of supplies and realize that they’re going to have to get to a store somehow, distrust grows. And no one can quite agree on whether or not they should ever answer the door.

The “survivors” material is intercut with the present-day material of Malorie and two children called only Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair) on a journey down a treacherous river. They wear blindfolds and are reminded constantly by Malorie that they better not take them off—no matter what they hear. The fact that we only see Malorie, and what anyone who’s seen a movie can presume are her and Olympia’s children, adds a sense of dread to the flashback material. Everyone else in the flashbacks is probably going to die.

And they do, but “Bird Box” is not your typical horror movie. It’s refreshingly devoid of big action sequences and CGI, relying more on the fear experienced by its characters than actual supernatural interactions. In a sense, it’s a reverse haunted house movie, one in which it’s not the one house that’s haunted but everything outside of it. How long could you survive with a group of strangers who are increasingly distrustful of each other as rations run short? Bier directs her cast expertly, allowing them nice little character beats that lesser directors would have ignored.

Most of the problems with “Bird Box” come back to a thin screenplay, one that too often gives its characters flat, expository dialogue and then writes itself into a corner with a climax that’s just silly when it needs to be tense. I haven’t read the book on which “Bird Box” is based, but it seems like the kind of thing that could work significantly better on the page, where our imaginations can run even more wild regarding what the characters are “seeing” and the scope of the mass suicides. Eric Heisserer's script works better when it sticks to the basics, locking us in what could be the last safe place on Earth and allowing us to ask how we’d behave in such a nightmarish predicament. And it does that just enough to find beats that are honestly tense and terrifying. Happy holidays, everybody. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Now playing

Apples Never Fall

Cristina escobar.

We Were the Lucky Ones

Robert daniels.

A Bit of Light

Peyton robinson.

Space: The Longest Goodbye

Marya e. gates.

Film Credits

Bird Box (2018)

124 minutes

Sandra Bullock as Malorie

Trevante Rhodes as Tom

Sarah Paulson as Shannon

Danielle Macdonald as Olympia

LilRel Howery as Charlie

John Malkovich as Douglas

• Susanne Bier

Writer (novel)

• Josh Malerman
• Eric Heisserer

Cinematographer

• Salvatore Totino
• Trent Reznor
• Atticus Ross

Latest blog posts

The Zellner Brothers Take a Walk in the Woods with Sasquatch Sunset

The Scene That Clint Eastwood Cut to Make Unforgiven a Classic

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise

​Criterion Celebrates the Films That Forever Shifted Our Perception of Kristen Stewart​

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Bird Box review – Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller is a bird-brained mess

Despite some tense moments, this apocalyptic shocker is a disappointingly clunky waste of a star-studded cast

A t the start of Susanne Bier’s apocalyptic thriller Bird Box, Sandra Bullock’s face fills the screen, daring the camera to break eye contact. Her Mallory is stern and commanding – Bullock’s in drill sergeant mode, not America’s sweetheart – and she doesn’t care about sounding kind. Outside, there are creatures who will kill you with a gaze. The audience never sees them ourselves, but we catch glimpses of their presence: the leaves rustle, the birds squawk and the unlucky victim’s pupils glaze over, turning red and watery as the viewers instantly kill themselves with the closest weapon: a window, a car, a desk – whatever’s handy, bloody and smash-y.

“If you look, you will die,” Mallory orders. Two small children stare back in silent fear. She’s spent five years surviving this plague-beast-Armageddon-whatsit, most of them trapped in this house. She’s outlasted the rest of her random roommates, a grab-bag of people who, like her, blundered into the first open door the morning most of the planet got massacred, a baby carriage rolling down the street as though Bird Box wants Battleship Potemkin to make room. Now, she has to shepherd these kids out of their home, into a rowboat, and down a dangerous river – blindfolded. For days. Sighs Mallory: “It’s going to feel like it’s going on for a long time.”

Boy, does it. Bier and her Netflix producers have made an algorithmic chiller that includes every trend from the sensory deprivation horror of Don’t Breathe and A Quiet Place to JJ Abrams’ mysterious monsters to thunderingly thematic sci-fi like Arrival, which screenwriter Eric Heisserer also penned. Bird Box’s pieces feel forcibly screwed together, a movie marionetted by strings of data code. There’s good scenes and smart ideas, but overall, the movie mostly clomps. Tense sequences, like an early attempt to head out for food, are capped by clunky punchlines while the climax is almost guaranteed to get giggles, as though the puppeteers in charge accidentally screwed on that scene in The Wicker Man where Nicolas Cage screams about the bees.

The ensemble, too, feels as curated as a box of donuts. There’s the classic crowd-pleasers such as Bullock and John Malkovich as an alcoholic crank who blames Mallory for the death of his third wife. (His second, he admits, said hell “couldn’t be worse than being married to me”.) There’s the cult favorites such as Sarah Paulson and Jacki Weaver. And then there’s the exciting flavors, all upcoming actors seized while hot: Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes, Patti Cake$’s Danielle MacDonald, The Maze Runner’s Rosa Salazar, Get Out’s Lil Rel Howery as a grocery store worker who never strips off his polyester vest, and Machine Gun Kelly, poised to slither on to every hitlist after playing Tommy Lee in the Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt.

These characters feel so crammed together and underwritten that they add up to almost nothing. When we meet them all, the camera bobs around like it’s just trying to count off that everyone’s in the room. Within minutes, the strangers solve the basic concept of what’s killing the globe, voices overlapping like this horror film could, with one butler tuxedo, suddenly spin into a British farce with people barging in and out of the kitchen in high-pitched crisis announcing things such as: “We need toilet paper!” and “Don’t answer the door!” No one gets a backstory. They simply arrive with one personality trait – Paulson’s character really likes horses, McDonald is a wannabe Disney princess – or in Kelly’s case, ominous camerawork that shoots him like a slasher villain for no reason at all. At the end of the film, you don’t feel moved to hoot for any of the individual performances – but you’re tempted to applaud the casting director.

Kicking off with Mallory’s brutal river babysitter mission is bold and bone-headed. That opening lecture lets Bier establish Bird Box’s rules, not that the two tykes listening are any more obedient than puppies. But when the film then jumps back five years to the first day of the attack, where most of the film takes place, there’s zero suspense in watching the rest of the cast get picked off. The what, why and how of the crisis never gets answered. Bird Box only grapples with the question of when – when will each person be stricken with the vicious Visine? – but even the film’s sense of time feels scrambled. The major scenes in the house could take place over days or weeks, it’s impossible to tell.

And the script is only moderately interested in logistics. There’s a quick lesson in echolocation, a dozen shots in blindfold-o-vision, sidewalks strung like Theseus outsmarting the Minotaur, and an entire sequence that’s a sales pitch for cars with proximity sensors. However, the back of the audience’s brain is stuck trying to figure out things like: are the monsters hunting their prey, or is it just impersonal? How do the roommates get rid of the corpses? And how offended will the American Psychiatric Association be that Bird Box’s secondary fiends are mental patients who, according to the film, can’t be driven crazy by the creatures because they’re already insane?

Bier is a lauded film-maker in her native Denmark, and recently directed the stellar first season of The Night Manager with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. How odd that in Hollywood, she’s made a career of helming can’t-miss films that somehow fizzle, be they the Oscar-striving pedigreed nonsense of Halle Berry’s Things We Lost in the Fire, or her more recent romance Serena, which paired Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper right after Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle and still flopped. Whatever’s going wrong with her American choices must feel as hazy and treacherous as whatever’s making Bird Box’s leaves rustle. Perhaps she, too, feels like Mallory, her competence going ignored by capricious children. As for the audience, as the film staggers on in its quest to give us entertainment satisfaction or death, we’re tempted to identity with the movie’s first victim, a woman in a tracksuit banging her head against the glass, ready to get this painful sight over with.

Bird Box was screening at the AFI festival and will be available on Netflix on 21 December

• First look review
• Sandra Bullock
• John Malkovich
• Science fiction and fantasy films
• Jacki Weaver

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

Pioneering the Future of AI-Enhanced Storytelling

Allegories do little to change the world.

Here’s all you need to know about Bird Box:

• Malkovich is a Trump supporter
• The door to the house is the border wall
• The bird box is your iPhone—

—and all the birds inside are Twitter, alerting you when all the “crazies” are around.

I half-expected Tim Robbins to be the one opening the door to the shelter for “the blind”—and laughed when I hear the man speak (it wasn’t him).

Screen Rant's review says it all:

Bird Box is a respectably moody and intelligent psychological thriller, if also a relatively muddled supernatural horror allegory.

Bird Box works as a cautionary tale—nothing more. The film's failure to craft a complete argument exaggerates its image systems—

—leaving one with no other alternative than to quietly roll his eyes when Malkovich proclaims, “Let’s make the end of the world great again!”

Half an Argument

Someone mentioned to me that he felt you could remove an hour from Bird Box and it would be the same film.

This is what happens when you double up on only half of a complete story. You fill the gaps with thematic material already well-established. You end up repeating yourself, instead of circling around and addressing all sides of an argument.

Only then can you make a lasting and robust case for your approach over others.

In Bird Box , we see strong evidence of an Objective Story Throughline perspective and a Main Character Throughline perspective. The end-of-the-world virus that leads to mass suicides supplies the former, while Mallory’s inability to accept her role as mother covers the latter.

The opposing Obstacle Character Throughline perspective and Relationship Story Throughline perspective are both woefully absent.

Save for one moment where potential Obstacle Character Tom argues the saving grace of Hope , these important counter-balances lead to what is essentially a one-sided argument.

One that won’t convince the already converted.

The Reason for a Main Character

The Main Character perspective exists to offer the Audience an opportunity to witness the same kind of conflict both from within and from without.

In our real lives, we can’t simultaneously be both within ourselves and without—we can’t see ourselves objectively.

Stories can. And do.

That’s why we love them—stories give us an experience we can’t find in our own lives.

But that point of conflict needs to be the same if we’re ever to acquire any meaning from the story.

Confusing the Source of Conflict

In Bird Box , the Objective Story Throughline Problem is Protection. Like the current political argument over the building of a southern border wall, the motivation to protect and to safeguard against outside enemies creates a massive amount of conflict.

The Solution to Protection is Inaction —to just do nothing. And that’s what Mallory does when she reaches the rapids. Faced with a post-apocalyptic Sophie’s choice, she decides not to decide and allow the raging waters of conflict carry her home.

And both her and the two children survive.

Unfortunately, the problem from Mallory’s Main Character Throughline perspective isn’t Protection, it’s Avoidance .

Faced with the reality of her pregnancy, she puts off wanting to know the gender, works through her water breaking and delays giving the children names—referring to them as “Boy” and “Girl.”

Eventually, she accepts her role as mother and pursues it with strength and confidence—

—it just doesn’t sync up with the issues in the Objective Story Throughline.

As a result, you’re left with a “well that was scary” appraisal of the last two hours.

You’re left with a tale , not a complete argument.

A Muddled Message

The Protection Problem of the Objective Story Throughline dilutes the stronger argument being made about Avoidance. In the attempt to be socially relevant, the film ends up being relevant to some, and irrelevant to others.

Unfortunately, the film sometimes struggles to balance its thriller elements with thought-provoking drama and conversations. As a result, Bird Box's subtext can be messy or unclear, and its larger commentary about the difference between survival and living (not to mention, its religious allusions) can come across as clunky and preachy, rather than organic to the story. Still, its messages are worthy of appreciation, and the movie generally works as a parable about the experience of becoming a mother in a world that seems to grow increasingly dangerous by the day.

Parables don't convince.

Complete arguments do.

The pieces were there to make that familiar argument about not avoiding—the same case made in The Lion King , Black Panther , and Mad Max: Fury Road . You had the Self-interest issues in the Objective Story, the drive for empathy from the Obstacle Character (Obstacle Character Problem of Feeling) , and semblances of Temptation in the Relationship...

...but by weaving in elements of another narrative, in a work already strapped for time (a series could handle both), Bird Box ends up reinforcing our already entrenched biases.

A complete narrative argument changes the world—

—and makes it possible for us to survive and prosper without relying on the birds to warn us.

Download the FREE e-book Never Trust a Hero

Don't miss out on the latest in narrative theory and storytelling with artificial intelligence. Subscribe to the Narrative First newsletter below and receive a link to download the 20-page e-book, Never Trust a Hero .

• study guides
• lesson plans
• homework help

Bird Box Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

Essay Topic 1

Describe Malorie's voice. Use specific adjectives and examples from the text and analyze whether this is a positive or negative voice. Use examples from the text to support whether she is optimistic or pessimistic.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay defining a mother from Malorie's perspective. What does it mean to be a good mother, and does Malorie think that she is a good mother?

Essay Topic 3

Malorie and Tom develop a close relationship. Analyze whether their relationship is more platonic or romantic. Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

Essay Topic 4

Malorie and a select few are survivors within the novel. Analyze how the author portrays and develops Malorie as a character to develop the theme of survival in the novel.

Essay Topic 5

Malorie frequently recollects the words and behaviors of her housemates as she rows on the river. How do these memories inspire...

(read more Essay Topics)

FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:

45 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-17

Chapters 18-28

Chapters 29-38

Chapters 39-43

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-8 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 summary.

In a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, during the mid 2010s, Malorie lives in a house with two four-year-old children whom she refers to simply as the Boy and the Girl . Four years earlier, a mysterious problem spread through the world: After seeing an unknown entity or creature, people started to act irrationally and committed acts of violence, including murder and suicide; only a few managed to survive. To protect herself and the children from seeing these creatures, Malorie keeps the windows of the house always covered and wears a blindfold whenever she goes outside. She also keeps microphones in the yard connected to amplifiers in the house and trains the children to listen closely. The house is dirty, including bloodstains that Malorie tried to wash out of the carpet.

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Featured Collections

Appearance Versus Reality

View Collection

Birth & Rebirth

Books Made into Movies

Daughters & Sons

Horror, Thrillers, & Suspense

Loyalty & Betrayal

Mortality & Death

Order & Chaos

Popular Book Club Picks

Safety & Danger

Science Fiction & Dystopian Fiction

Teams & Gangs

The Best of "Best Book" Lists

Trust & Doubt

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• The First Omen Link to The First Omen
• The Beast Link to The Beast

New TV Tonight

• Chucky: Season 3
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Franklin: Season 1
• Dora: Season 1
• Good Times: Season 1
• Beacon 23: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• The Regime: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Ripley Link to Ripley
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

CinemaCon 2024: Day 1 – WB Showcases Joker: Folie à Deux , Furiosa , and More

TV Premiere Dates 2024

• Trending on RT
• Play Movie Trivia

Bird Box Reviews

Bird Box toes the line. It holds your attention. It lets your imagination run wild, and sparks a ticker of running questions while you're engrossed with what's happening on screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 10, 2023

There's a lot to like about Bier's direction, though some of screenwriter Heisserer's adaptation choices don't always work. Thankfully Bullock and the mass death sequence are great, even if the film essentially has to do a soft reboot afterwards.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2023

“Bird Box” runs the gambit from riveting to predictable to kinda silly. At the same time it’s never boring and the performances are always worth watching.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

...it's perennial Every-gal Bullock who ultimately is the VIP...

Full Review | Oct 26, 2021

To survive, they live in a world without sight of the outside world. That premise inevitably invites comparison to A Quiet Place. In Bird Box, the concept does not work nearly as well.

I love Susanne Bier's movies for their conscious humanity, and that's the quality that separates this from many similar movies about the end of the world and the collapse of civilization.

...the denouement of Bird Box has a particularly intriguing twist.

The taut pacing and overall tension keep you invested.

Susanne Bier is a filmmaker with an innate ability to mine the painful truths of the human experience.

Silly un-scary mash-up of ten things better things before it

Full Review | Jul 2, 2021

More than anything, this is a display of what movie stars can do. Bullock's time bomb performance, always tamping down the scream she clearly wants to let out, is riveting. The film she gifts it to is not much to see.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2021

I'm not gonna lie this film actually left me in tears, it was beautiful, it was strong, and it was direct and that ending. Wow.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 18, 2020

The acting really sells the premise, chiefly from Bullock, imparting a striking sincerity that prevents the sci-fi/horror elements from being frivolous.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 5, 2020

With an extremely interesting premise, Bird Box becomes a meaningless film filled with disappointing moments. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Aug 30, 2020

...Bird Box does give visual and dramatic life to a fairly widespread conviction at present in certain upper middle class circles, in Hollywood and elsewhere...

Full Review | Aug 5, 2020

While it's no 4-star instant classic like "A Quiet Place," which did it first and did it better, far be it from me to nitpick a viral hit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 24, 2020

Bird Box is as horrific as it is captivating...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2020

Should have been called "Bird-brained."

Full Review | Sep 12, 2019

I saw Bird Box in previews before the hype and thought it was an entertaining, small-scale Sandra Bullock film with a nifty concept and few pretensions.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2019

[Susanne] Bier does a great job of adding tension to set pieces, however, some of the choices she makes take away from that tension.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 2, 2019

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

When I Became a Birder, Almost Everything Else Fell Into Place

Mr. Yong is a science writer whose most recent book, “An Immense World,” investigates animal perception.

Last September, I drove to a protected wetland near my home in Oakland, Calif., walked to the end of a pier and started looking at birds. Throughout the summer, I was breaking in my first pair of binoculars, a Sibley field guide and the Merlin song-identification app, but always while hiking or walking the dog. On that pier, for the first time, I had gone somewhere solely to watch birds.

In some birding circles, people say that anyone who looks at birds is a birder — a kind, inclusive sentiment that overlooks the forces that create and shape subcultures. Anyone can dance, but not everyone would identify as a dancer, because the term suggests, if not skill, then at least effort and intent. Similarly, I’ve cared about birds and other animals for my entire life, and I’ve written about them throughout my two decades as a science writer, but I mark the moment when I specifically chose to devote time and energy to them as the moment I became a birder.

Since then, my birder derangement syndrome has progressed at an alarming pace. Seven months ago, I was still seeing very common birds for the first time. Since then, I’ve seen 452 species, including 337 in the United States, and 307 this year alone. I can reliably identify a few dozen species by ear. I can tell apart greater and lesser yellowlegs, house and purple finches, Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks. (Don’t talk to me about gulls; I’m working on the gulls.) I keep abreast of eBird’s rare bird alerts and have spent many days — some glorious, others frustrating — looking for said rare birds. I know what it means to dip, to twitch, to pish . I’ve gone owling.

I didn’t start from scratch. A career spent writing about nature gave me enough avian biology and taxonomy to roughly know the habitats and silhouettes of the major groups. Journalism taught me how to familiarize myself with unfamiliar territory very quickly. I crowdsourced tips on the social media platform Bluesky . I went out with experienced birders to learn how they move through a landscape and what cues they attend to.

I studied up on birds that are famously difficult to identify so that when I first saw them in the field, I had an inkling of what they were without having to check a field guide. I used the many tools now available to novices: EBird shows where other birders go and reveals how different species navigate space and time; Merlin is best known as an identification app but is secretly an incredible encyclopedia; Birding Quiz lets you practice identifying species based on fleeting glances at bad angles.

This all sounds rather extra, and birding is often defined by its excesses. At its worst, it becomes an empty process of collection that turns living things into abstract numbers on meaningless lists. But even that style of birding is harder without knowledge. To find the birds, you have to know them. And in the process of knowing them, much else falls into place.

Birding has tripled the time I spend outdoors. It has pushed me to explore Oakland in ways I never would have: Amazing hot spots lurk within industrial areas, sewage treatment plants and random residential parks. It has proved more meditative than meditation. While birding, I seem impervious to heat, cold, hunger and thirst. My senses focus resolutely on the present, and the usual hubbub in my head becomes quiet. When I spot a species for the first time — a lifer — I course with adrenaline while being utterly serene.

I also feel a much deeper connection to the natural world, which I have long written about but always remained slightly distant from. I knew that the loggerhead shrike — a small but ferocious songbird — impales the bodies of its prey on spikes. I’ve now seen one doing that with my own eyes. I know where to find the shrikes and what they sound like. Countless fragments of unrooted trivia that rattled around my brain are now grounded in place, time and experience.

When I step out my door in the morning, I take an aural census of the neighborhood, tuning in to the chatter of creatures that were always there and that I might have previously overlooked. The passing of the seasons feels more granular, marked by the arrival and disappearance of particular species instead of much slower changes in day length, temperature and greenery. I find myself noticing small shifts in the weather and small differences in habitat. I think about the tides.

So much more of the natural world feels close and accessible now. When I started birding, I remember thinking that I’d never see most of the species in my field guide. Sure, backyard birds like robins and western bluebirds would be easy, but not black skimmers or peregrine falcons or loggerhead shrikes. I had internalized the idea of nature as distant and remote — the province of nature documentaries and far-flung vacations. But in the past six months, I’ve seen soaring golden eagles, heard duetting great horned owls, watched dancing sandhill cranes and marveled at diving Pacific loons, all within an hour of my house. “I’ll never see that” has turned into “Where can I find that?”

Of course, having the time to bird is an immense privilege. As a freelancer, I have total control over my hours and my ability to get out in the field. “Are you a retiree?” a fellow birder recently asked me. “You’re birding like a retiree.” I laughed, but the comment spoke to the idea that things like birding are what you do when you’re not working, not being productive.

I reject that. These recent years have taught me that I’m less when I’m not actively looking after myself, that I have value to my world and my community beyond ceaseless production and that pursuits like birding that foster joy, wonder and connection to place are not sidebars to a fulfilled life but their essence.

It’s easy to think of birding as an escape from reality. Instead, I see it as immersion in the true reality. I don’t need to know who the main characters are on social media and what everyone is saying about them, when I can instead spend an hour trying to find a rare sparrow. It’s very clear to me which of those two activities is the more ridiculous. It’s not the one with the sparrow.

More of those sparrows are imminent. I’m about to witness my first spring migration as warblers and other delights pass through the Bay Area. Birds I’ve seen only in drab grays are about to don their spectacular breeding plumages. Familiar species are about to burst out in new tunes that I’ll have to learn. I have my first lazuli bunting to see, my first blue grosbeak to find, my first least terns to photograph. I can’t wait.

Ed Yong is a science writer whose most recent book, “An Immense World,” investigates animal perception.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Customer Reviews

Experts to Provide You Writing Essays Service.

You can assign your order to:

• Basic writer. In this case, your paper will be completed by a standard author. It does not mean that your paper will be of poor quality. Before hiring each writer, we assess their writing skills, knowledge of the subjects, and referencing styles. Furthermore, no extra cost is required for hiring a basic writer.
• Advanced writer. If you choose this option, your order will be assigned to a proficient writer with a high satisfaction rate.
• TOP writer. If you want your order to be completed by one of the best writers from our essay writing service with superb feedback, choose this option.
• Your preferred writer. You can indicate a specific writer's ID if you have already received a paper from him/her and are satisfied with it. Also, our clients choose this option when they have a series of assignments and want every copy to be completed in one style.

Our Top Proficient Writers At Your Essays Service

Dr.Jeffrey (PhD)

Finished Papers

Get Professional Writing Services Today!

Get a free quote from our professional essay writing service and an idea of how much the paper will cost before it even begins. If the price is satisfactory, accept the bid and watch your concerns slowly fade away! Our team will make sure that staying up until 4 am becomes a thing of the past. The essay service is known for providing some of the best writing, editing, and proofreading available online. What are you waiting for? Join our global educational community today!

Can I Trust You With Other Assignments that aren't Essays?

The best way to complete a presentation speech is with a team of professional writers. They have the experience, the knowledge, and ways to impress your prof. Another assignment you can hire us for is an article review. Evaluating someone's work with a grain of salt cannot be easy, especially if it is your first time doing this. To summarize, article reviews are a challenging task. Good that you've found our paper service and can now drop your worries after placing an order. If reading 100-page-long academic articles and digging into every piece of information doesn't sound like something you'd want to do on a Sunday night, hire our essay writing company to do your research proposal. Are you struggling with understanding your professors' directions when it comes to homework assignments? Hire professional writers with years of experience to earn a better grade and impress your parents. Send us the instructions, and your deadline, and you're good to go. We're sure we have a professional paper writer with the skills to complete practically any assignment for you. We only hire native English speakers with a degree and 3+ years of experience, some are even uni professors.

2269 Chestnut Street, #477 San Francisco CA 94123

Will I get caught if I buy an essay?

The most popular question from clients and people on the forums is how not to get caught up in the fact that you bought an essay, and did not write it yourself. Students are very afraid that they will be exposed and expelled from the university or they will simply lose their money, because they will have to redo the work themselves.

If you've chosen a good online research and essay writing service, then you don't have to worry. The writers from the firm conduct their own exploratory research, add scientific facts and back it up with the personal knowledge. None of them copy information from the Internet or steal ready-made articles. Even if this is not enough for the client, he can personally go to the anti-plagiarism website and check the finished document. Of course, the staff of the sites themselves carry out such checks, but no one can forbid you to make sure of the uniqueness of the article for yourself.

Thanks to the privacy policy on web platforms, no one will disclose your personal data and transfer to third parties. You are completely safe from start to finish.