Is Cordelia Cupp the birder we have now been ready for? The cinematic illustration of our ardour, offered to the world as each the neatest particular person within the room and the quirkiest particular person within the constructing? Is that this how we glance to the world? Is that this how we wish the world to see us? Let’s speak a bit about The Residence and different representations of birders (and birding) in movie and tv.
The Residence is an eight-episode mystery-comedy-drama miniseries created by Paul William Davies, produced by Shondaland, presently streaming on Netflix (my apologies to readers who don’t or can’t subscribe, hopefully will probably be out there via different venues in time). Cordelia Cupp, performed by the incomparable Uzo Aduba, is the star and the center of The Residence. A world-famous “consulting detective,” Cordelia Cupp is an African American, 40-something years previous lady referred to as in to research the dying of Chief Usher E. B. Whyte. Like her literary and movie predecessors (assume Sherlock Holmes, the unique consulting detective, Hercule Poirot, Benoit Blanc, Lord Peter Whimsey and Harriet Vane mixed), Cordelia is quietly assured, unintimidated by highly effective individuals, and solves mysteries with authentic thought and sensible evaluation. She’s wearing colours of brown and beige–a British searching jacket over a V-neck sweater over a shirt which will have little birds on them, with Katherine Hepburn-type pants, and wise brown brogues. She swings a weathered leather-based satchel, capacious sufficient to carry a really giant ebook about birds and a small pocket book, which she makes use of for each birds and to resolve mysteries.
© Netflix, 2025
We all know Cordelia Cupp is a birder instantly as a result of, relatively than instantly going into the White Home to look at the physique, she birds the White Home grounds. We first see her from the White Home balcony, the place a gaggle of males are incredulously watching her birding at the hours of darkness, her face obscured by binoculars. Cordelia walks in full of pleasure at seeing two birds on Theodore Roosevelt’s White Home chicken record, an Japanese Screech-Owl and a Purple Grackle (stretching out the phrase ‘graakkkllle’ so we too concentrate), earlier than seamlessly transitioning to a silent however intense examination of E.B. Whyte’s physique. (She does take a second to take a look at the self-important males within the room and say, to the enjoyment of girls all over the place, “Wow. It’s lots of dudes.”). It’s not clear whether or not Cordelia has agreed to tackle the case as a result of it’s an intriguing problem, or as a favor to her good friend, the metropolitan police commissioner, or as a result of it offers her a possibility to see the birds on Roosevelt’s record, however given her change of demeanor from pure pleasure over the Purple Grackle (the title Roosevelt would have used on the time) and her businesslike focus analyzing the physique and the room, my cash is on the latter.
That is the primary of many scenes that contain birding, to my thoughts genuine (largely) and sometimes humorous. There are bits of insider birder dialog, like when Cordelia talks to real-life birder and creator (and guide for the sequence) Kenn Kaufman concerning the birds she noticed and missed in Colombia. Sadly, we don’t hear Kenn on the different finish of the satellite tv for pc cellphone (Cordelia doesn’t personal a cellphone), however she does determine him after her cellphone dialog because the finder of the primary Pale-footed Swallow for Venezuela–a little bit of trivia I didn’t know. Moments of humor play on the variations between how birders and non-birders do issues, as when Cordelia makes use of her binoculars (I feel Swaros) to look at the gown shirt worn by an Australian diplomat (he’s good-looking, however Cordelia is extra keen on proof that it isn’t his shirt). Generally it’s a little bit of each the genuine and the comedian, corresponding to when Cordelia offers her definition of intercourse to the Australian diplomat (the one she was analyzing along with her bins): “I outline it because the factor I get pleasure from greater than speaking about actual property and fewer than birds.” (Don’t deny it–we have now all had this thought.) My private favorites are the bits when White Home energy gamers turn out to be completely exasperated with Cordelia’s bird-mind, corresponding to when White Home insider Harry Holloway shouts, “Can we not with the f****** birds this time. Sufficient with the f****** birds!” Take a look at the screenshot beneath and inform me you don’t have mates or household that seem like this whenever you point out birds.
From Episode 8, © Netflix, 2025
Extra nuanced are the birding scenes that give perception into Cordelia Cupp’s character and private historical past. In episode 4, on the seaside of an unnamed island in French Polynesia looking for a Tuamotu Sandpiper, she has a dialog along with her younger nephew Ansel which will sound acquainted:
Ansel: “We haven’t seen any birds.”
Cordelia: “We’ve got seen birds. We haven’t seen THE chicken.”
Later, Ansel: “What if we don’t discover the chicken?”
Cordelia: “We’ll discover the chicken.”
Ansel: Have you ever ever given up?
Cordelia: No.
Ansel: By no means?
Cordelia: No.
Ansel: By no means?
Cordelia: No.
Ansel: By no means?
Cordelia: No.
Ansel: Do you ever assume that is unhealthy?
Ansel’s mom, Cordelia’s beloved sister, thinks her birding ardour is single-minded and obsessive. We are able to relate.
The genius of the script is that these core birding attributes are additionally what makes Cordelia the world’s biggest detective. She is extremely observant, has an unimaginable reminiscence for element, listens—actually listens to individuals (and birds and background noise), and has monumental quantities of endurance. She additionally is aware of her birds, and regularly cites examples of chicken conduct to show some extent. Generally the metaphors somewhat convoluted—the Mountain Chickadee’s close to good recall of each place they’re cached their 80,000 seeds one way or the other pertains to individuals’s skill to recollect issues essential to them, together with “the issues we have now hidden inside,” which one way or the other pertains to the secrets and techniques of sure homicide suspects is a major instance—however we settle for it as a result of we’re birders and Cordelia Cupp may be very assured and really convincing and carries round that massive chicken ebook. (The ebook itself is a intelligent faux, using the beautiful birdy cowl design of Birds of the World by Les Beletsky however with completely different birds and a distinct creator, Wendell Phillips, who in actual life was an abolitionist. Curiously, Kenn Kaufman wrote a blurb for the Beletsky ebook.)
There are a number of snafus that birders have cited in social media and interviews. There’s that enormous chicken ebook–wouldn’t Cordelia have been extra more likely to carry a area information? Additionally, it will have been very troublesome for Cordelia to determine a Purple Grackle or a Music Sparrow at the hours of darkness, these birds are unlikely to be lively at the moment (and–it’s darkish). The falcon featured within the opening of episode two appears to be like CGI-created and isn’t fairly a Peregrine Falcon, neither is it recognized as one, it’s merely referred to as “a falcon.” And why is the Large Antpitta Cordelia’s nemesis chicken, why didn’t she merely go to Ecuador and see one at Refugio Paz de las Aves, the place they feed out of the fingers of Angel Paz and his household?
Kenn Kaufmann addresses most of those criticisms in an article in Audubon Journal . He principally says that Cordelia was birding at the hours of darkness was obligatory due to story dictates, the falcon is a “metaphor,” and that he thinks Cordelia was looking for the Large Antpitta on her personal as a result of she didn’t need to see it the simple means, an evidence that actually does mirror her character: “Generally you need to droop disbelief just a bit. The Residence is a piece of fiction, in spite of everything. And it’s splendidly entertaining fiction, with considerable mentions of birds, starring an amazing detective who is completely cool and a devoted birder. He doesn’t point out the very giant chicken ebook, however I’m certain we might provide you with some type of imaginative reason Cordelia has an attachment to it. Personally, and because the mother of a tv author, I perceive the need of compromise when writing scripts and I’m actually glad The Residence producers thought to rent a birding guide. It’s an enormous step ahead.
Which brings us to the cinematic and video birder pictures which has haunted us over time. Chief amongst them is the “Miss Jane Hathaway Birder,” a picture so prevalent Corey cited it in his 10,000 Birds evaluate of The Massive 12 months. For individuals who didn’t develop up with a TV present referred to as The Beverley Hillbillies (1962-1971), Miss Jane Hathaway was a gawky, strait-laced financial institution administrator who was an avid birdwatcher and who often confirmed up in a khaki birdwatching uniform that includes a neckerchief, badges (did the costume designer confuse chicken golf equipment with the Boy Scouts?), pith helmet, and enormous binoculars. Her look was an instantaneous sign for the viewers to guffaw lengthy and loud; clearly birdwatching was for dorks and spinsters solely. Miss Hathaway was performed by a really clever lady named Nancy Kulp who later ran for political workplace, however who earlier in her profession performed one other avid, awkward birdwatcher on the 1950’s tv comedy “The Bob Cummings Present.” Miss Hathaway’s birdwatching good friend was performed on one episode by Wally Cox, an actor who outlined the time period “dork” on early tv. But it surely was Jane Hathaway who individuals remembered and associated to birdwatching.
Screenshot from The Beverly Hillbillies © CBS, 1963
I’m unsure how this stereotype happened, perhaps from early birdwatchers’ acutely aware alternative to look at birds via opera-glasses relatively than taking pictures them with weapons; perhaps from the marginally sentimental side of the primary chicken guides, which had been written by ladies and which emphasised nurturing birds and their habitats; perhaps from a extra common cultural stereotype that good ladies wanted to cover their intelligence in the event that they had been going to snag a husband. Which brings us to the opposite predominant stereotype of a birdwatcher in movie: the boastful mental. Nowhere is that this captured extra completely than in appropriately, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Mrs. Bundy, an ornithologist, pontificates on chicken conduct, declaring tales of offended, attacking birds patently ridiculous. She scolds heroine Melanie Daniels: “Birds have been on this planet, Miss Daniels, since Archaeopteryx; 100 and forty million years in the past. Doesn’t it appear odd that they’d wait all that point to start out a – a warfare towards humanity?” There’s truly lots of fact in what Mrs. Bundy tells Melanie and the diner prospects–birds are lovely creatures and it’s people who make it troublesome for them to outlive–however her condescension and refusal to take anybody with much less tutorial credentials critically make her unlikeable and never very useful, and by the tip of the movie she is cowering in fright with everybody else.
Scene from The Birds, © Common Photos, 1963
A beautiful replace of Mrs. Bundy and Jane Hathaway is offered in a current episode of Murdoch Mysteries, a Canadian detective tv sequence set within the early twentieth century. Within the episode “Murdoch and the Treasure of Lima” (season 17, episode 15, 2024), creator Margaret Atwood (sure, creator of The Handmaid’s Story and an avid birder and conservation supporter in actual life) seems as Loren Quinnell, an “novice ornithologist,” who helps detectives William Murdoch and Llewellyn Watts on a treasure searching thriller that has taken them to the wilds of northern Ontario. However not earlier than she strictly admonishes them to NOT disturb the migrating Sandhill Cranes of their travels and explains progressive (for 1911) ideas of Edmund Selous, one of many first ornithologists to advocate for not taking pictures birds for scientific examine. Detective Murdoch, a personality recognized for his curiosity in science, responds, “Lay down the gun and take up a park of opera glasses,” each a paraphrase of Selous’s writing and a reference to Florence Merriam Bailey’s Birds By means of an Opera Glass (1898), one in every of our earliest and hottest area guides. Quinnell’s clothes model echoes Mrs. Bundy’s extreme apparel, however she tops it off with a jaunty boater (sans feathers, in fact), and a smooth, flouncy shirt and neckerchief. She is assured, clever, explains relatively than pontificates (although she rightly admonishing Detective Murdoch for not doing his job after she journeys the fleeing assassin along with her tripod), and, like Cordelia Cupp, reads chicken books and isn’t with out her pocket book (see it on the desk beneath!).
Margaret Atwood in Murdoch Mysteries © CBC Gem, 2024
Portrayals of male birders in media are inclined to proceed the trope of the detail-focused obsessive however are sometimes a lot kinder than the prickly Miss Jane Hathaway and Mrs. Bundy stereotypes. Just about all tv procedurals have at the least one episode wherein birders discover proof (a Raven carrying a human eyeball in CSI is one in every of my favorites), a physique, or witness the assassin doing one thing incriminating. Birders pop up rather a lot in British thriller sequence, particularly one other of my favorites, Midsomer Murders. In “A Uncommon Chook” (season 14, episode 8, 2012) the members of the Midsomer-in-the-Marsh Ornithological Society battle over a sighting of a uncommon Blue-crested Hoopoe (a fictional species that’s proven to exist on this fictional world); and in “Sauce for the Goose” (season 8, episode 7, 2005) Ralph Plummer solely needs to take a seat in his chicken disguise and watch Goshawks, completely uninterested within the household relish manufacturing unit (sadly, Ralph’s bird-obsessed dreaminess makes him complicit within the episode’s homicide).
A few of my mates wish to carry up a serious episode of the sequence Legal Minds, after we discuss birders on tv. “Nelson’s Sparrow” (season 10, episode 13, 2015) incorporates a serial killer who leaves a Nelson’s Sparrow within the fingers of his victims, apparently a reference to the chicken’s secretive nature and the best way it walks, not flies, from hazard. I’m not going to incorporate the character in my record of TV/movie birders, although. The killer doesn’t seem like a birder regardless of his expertise for capturing sparrows (I don’t assume they ever clarify how he does it) as a lot as a sick particular person whose fantasies had been impressed by an aunt who was a birder, a founding member of a bird-watching membership referred to as the Flappers (the title as a lot a figment of the author’s creativeness because the Blue-crested Hoopoe).
On the comedy finish of the tv spectrum, we have now Luke Perry as light, obsessive birder Aaron in a 2005 episode of the comedy Will & Grace. Aaron encounters Jack whereas observing the uncommon (very uncommon in NYC!) Golden-cheeked Warbler (sadly, whereas Aaron makes use of the proper, for 2005, scientific title for the chicken, the chicken name we hear is harking back to Tweety Chook and the chicken we see is a few type of dressed-up finch–however that’s fodder for one more article). He’s carrying stereotypical birder garments, a khaki vest with a number of pockets, a hoodie and a few type of different layer, a cap, binoculars, and glasses. When requested what the feminine Golden-cheeked Warbler appears to be like like, Aaron replies, “Who cares?” and Jack instantly concludes that that is “the rarest of all homosexual subspecies, the new homosexual nerd.” However we all know that that is merely the normative male bias of birding. Certainly, Aaron seems to be extra keen on cash than in birds, main Jack to name him “the new, homosexual opportunist,” however two issues may be true on the similar time and Aaron stays a enjoyable, trendy birder stereotype.
© NBC Common Tv, 2005
These early and not-so-early birders appeared as secondary characters, designed to touch upon motion or spark humor. It took an enormous, main studio movie, The Massive 12 months (2011), to thrust birders into our cultural consciousness. Based mostly on the nonfiction ebook The Massive 12 months: A Story of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik, the movie presents fictionalized variations of the three real-life birders who birded the hell out of 1998: Steve Martin’s Stu Preissler, is a rich, type businessman based mostly on Al Levantin; Jack Black’s Brad Harris is frenetic pc programmer based mostly on birder Greg Miller; and Luke Wilson’s Kenny Bostwick, the outrageous birder holding the Massive 12 months report everyone seems to be attempting to interrupt, relies on the late, well-known (some may say notorious) twitcher Sandy Komito. They’re all obsessed and the movie, just like the ebook, does an amazing job exhibiting the alternative ways the obsession is expressed and the bounds for every birder. As in actual life, it’s the Bostwick character that has attracted probably the most consideration. The character crosses moral boundaries, performs methods, sacrifices friendships and relationships to get the chicken. He’s Obsessive Birder Supreme. Black infuses Harris with comedian power, hopefully setting the inspiration for a brand new sort of birder stereotype, the one the place birders are having an absolute blast, even once they don’t get the chicken. The sanest of the Massive 12 months birders, Martin’s Stu Preissler, the birder who sacrificed his journey to Attu to avoid wasting the roles of the individuals who labored for him, has obtained the least consideration within the media and birder tradition, which says rather a lot about how stereotypes and media pictures are fashioned. It’s all concerning the extremes and the feelings they spark, whether or not or not it’s awe or laughter or concern.
Maybe that’s the reason the movie that gives probably the most genuine portrayals of birders (in my view) will not be very well-known. A Birder’s Information to All the pieces (2013), an impartial movie directed by Rob Meyer, is concerning the quest of 4 15-year previous birders to discover a Labrador Duck, an extinct chicken that David, one of many boys, thinks he has photographed whereas biking. The three boys are members of their highschool chicken membership, and they’re good, dorky (their membership secret language is Latin), obsessive about birds and life lists, but additionally keen on ladies. When Ellen, who has entry to an excellent digital camera from the college, comes alongside on the hunt, they tease her but additionally sweetly introduce her to birds and the artwork of utilizing binoculars.
A Birder’s Information to All the pieces © Display screen Media Movies, 2013
David has misplaced his mom, the one who taught him methods to chicken, and his father is about to marry once more. The search for the extinct duck turns into a coming-of-age story wherein he works out his grief and anger, largely grief. His mentor is an older ornithologist, Lawrence Konrad, who has a historical past of ill-fated chases–he misplaced a leg looking for the endangered Pale-headed Brushfinch in Ecuador (he didn’t discover it), he misplaced his driver’s license chasing an albino Nighthawk (a high-speed police chase was concerned), and he’s certain he noticed the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in 2005. As portrayed by Ben Kingsley, Konrad is way from a stereotypical crackpot birder–he’s excited sufficient by David’s blurry {photograph} to observe the boys to the pond the place the duck may be, however delicate to David’s ache when he learns who his mom is, and treats all of the younger birders with respect. Even when he tells David, “I’m 63 years previous and really a lot alone. I information assholes for cash. I’ve one leg and no driver’s license. Please don’t confuse me with a task mannequin,” he carries himself with such world-weary dignity that you simply marvel, how can David not take heed to him. (Ken Kaufman was additionally a guide for this movie, and truly makes a non-speaking, non-birding look on the finish.)
I see a few of Lawrence Konrad’s sense of presence, of gravitas, in Cordelia Cupp. I feel it’s a quiet dignity, the arrogance, that comes from figuring out about birds. I see it in the perfect birders I do know. Realizing about birds is essential as a result of you’ll be able to key that data into so many different issues about life, our personal particular person lives and life within the widest sense–environmental, societal, even political–and Cordelia makes use of that data. Within the final episode, confronting all of the doable suspects, Cordelia goes right into a whirlwind of chicken and birding historical past. She cites the Passenger Pigeon and the truth that President Theodore Roosevelt was the final educated observer to see them within the wild to indicate that the sudden can occur–on this case, a shock suspect. The makers of the sequence go all out for this scene, exhibiting us precise footage of the extinct chicken and Teddy within the area. And Cordelia lays out the case for why an amazing birder is a superb detective: “The nice birder–and Teddy Roosevelt was an amazing birder–appears to be like for context, understands relationships, historical past. What you might be seeing must make sense. And that flock of pigeons made no sense. They had been extinct. However, you additionally need to belief your self. As a result of you already know what you might be seeing, even when everybody else says no, that’s not it.”
I don’t know what an eBird reviewer would make of this assertion, however I like this definition of a birder. It takes us past garments, binoculars, and lists, reaches previous the method of identification to a extra complicated mixture of analytic commentary and self-belief. And it brings us again to my authentic query–Is Cordelia Cupp the birder we have now been ready for? Is she how we wish the world to view birders? Is she how we view ourselves? For me the reply is a professional sure. I like birders being thought-about the neatest individuals within the room, even when that room consists of the president of the US (any president). I like how unashamed Cordelia is of her birding ardour, of carrying and utilizing binoculars in all conditions, and the way she flaunts her birding data in all conditions, even when it doesn’t at all times make whole sense. I would love Cordelia Cupp to be one in every of a number of new birder cultural pictures, and I hope movie and tv creators will probably be impressed to present us extra. Out with the dork, in with the neatest particular person within the constructing!
The Residence was created by Paul William Davies and produced by Shondaland. The primary 4 episodes had been directed by Liza Johnson & the final 4 episodes had been directed by Jaffar Mahmood.
The Residence stars Uzo Aduba, Giancarlo Esposito, Molly Griggs, Ken Marino, Randall Park, Susan Kelechi Watson, Jane Curtin, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Bronson Pinchot, Jason Lee, Mary Wiseman, and plenty of different famous actors. It was impressed by the nonfiction ebook The Residence: Contained in the Personal World of the White Home by Kate Andersen Brower.
