Thought Portal

This episode’s guest may be too young to remember the 90’s children’s show, Gullah Gullah Island, but he’s certainly influencing the next generation the same! Isaiah Scott, a rising Gen-Z bird-influencer and ornithologist, reconnects with Tenijah to dish all about his journey into birding while young, Black and curious. He also shares how his Gullah Geechee heritage continues to inspire his work, including a forthcoming field guide that seeks to preserve his ancestral connection to birds. There’s definitely “lots to see and to do there”– press play and take the journey with us!

Suspended above Angel Place, a pedestrian lane that runs between George and Pitt Streets in Sydney, there are scores of cages. In combination with the delicate visuals above, sound artwork rises from below in a wave of calls of long-vanished birds.

“Forgotten Songs” is a collaboration of art and ornithology, to remember the calls of 50 birds that once thrived in Sydney, that have either been pushed to the city fringes or drowned out altogether in the wake of accelerated development.

Originally part of a collection of installations called “Laneways By George! Hidden Networks,” it started as a temporary exhibit, part of an initiative to remind the urbanites of  of some neglected sounds and spaces of a more human scale.

The recordings are from species that all once chirped in central Sydney, and they change along with the time of day to match their natural habits. So morning birds sing in the morning, and nocturnal birds call out at night.

The original installation proved so popular, funds were provided by the city to make it permanent, as a lovely, mournful way to remember a long-vanished part of Sydney life.