Curiosities in Common: Birds + Data

Curiosities in Common: Birds + Data
May 12, 2026
September 14, 2026
Baker-Berry Library, Berry Main Street

Curated by Jacqueline Wernimont

Explore birds, birding, categorization, data, embodiment, visualization, and visceralization—at Dartmouth, in the Upper Valley, and beyond!

Illustration of seven birds superimposed on the types of foliage and flora they live in, and waveforms for their calls

Intersections between birds and data

Birds + Data is the theme of 2025-2026’s year-long Curiosities in Common program, produced by the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster (DHSE). This exhibit features historical and contemporary practices, media, technologies, and artwork, surrounding birds and data. Explore works along the Brickway and Berry Gallery by renowned data artists Jer Thorp and Nathalie Miebach. A second gallery in the Visual Arts Center features the collaborative meditations of Colombian artist Tau Luna.

 

Curated by Jacqueline Wernimont, Distinguished Chair, Digital Humanities and Social Engagement. Designed by Max Seidman, Exhibits and Graphic Arts Designer

With data visualizations from Jer Thorp, Nathalie Miebach, Raisa Kochmaruk, and the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation

Special thanks to Deborah Howe, Matthew Zimmerman, Samara Ayvazian-Hancock, Ryland Ianelli, Julia Logan, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 

Early Ornithology

Early Ornithology

American birding clubs grew out of 19th century women’s activism. In the early 19th century, most ornithologists collected dead bird specimens and published books that favored written description over illustration. Ornithologist and nature writer Florence Augusta Merriam (1863-1948) the study of living birds.

Merriam’s Through an Opera-Glass was the first real bird field guide. She taught readers to identify birds not only by physical appearance, but also by noticing their behavior and songs. 

Spread of pages from Florence Merriam's book Through an Opera-Glass

A Long History of Birds & Data At Dartmouth

A Long History of Birds & Data At Dartmouth

By the early 1900s, birdwatching was popular throughout the Upper Valley. Bird arrivals were posted on the Howe Library bulletin board and published in the Hanover Gazette. The Vermont Bird Club—later renamed the Hanover Bird Club—hosted annual meetings, faculty lectures, bird walks, and slide shows.

Historical photograph of a man with a bird perched on his finger, taking a seed from between his lips.

An early Dartmouth bird club took students on trips like this one to make friends with local fauna. But in more recent years Dartmouth hasn't had a birding club. So Wyatt Cummings '24 founded the current Flora and Fauna student group in 2022.

Listening To Birds

Listening To Birds

Many of us hear birds before we ever see them, and sometimes we only hear them despite our best efforts to find them.

The earliest known bird recording was made in Germany in 1889 by 8-year-old Ludwig Koch who used an Edison wax cylinder machine to capture the song of a captive white-rumped shama.

Historical photo of a man with binoculars using headphones to listen to a parabolic dish

The parabolic reflector (like this “sound mirror”) was foundational for the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell, which became the basis of modern mobile apps that identify birdsong.

Beyond Conventional Data Visualization

Beyond Conventional Data Visualization

“Sure, we can make charts and graphs to explain, or to reveal, or to clarify. But we can also use them to tell jokes, to foster whimsy, and yes—to proclaim love.” —Jer Thorp, data artist

Noticing birds can become an exercise in breaking out of standardized and structured data like that suggested in taxonomic works or in birding apps. You could describe a cardinal’s song as sounding like a Star Wars laser blaster. Or you might note that a cedar waxwing looks like a dark smokey eye with white eyeliner.

Participants in Dartmouth’s Curiosities in Common: Birds + Data program broke out of the box by creating postcards featuring small data visualizations about birds, also express something about the creators as authors, designers, and noticers. 

Circular arrangement of many colorful feather graphics

Of A Feather by Jer Thorp visualizes 10,151 bird species in a single composition. Each feather is positioned radially by wing length, and colored using descriptions extracted from Wikipedia with natural language processing.

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