Birds have been a source of fascination for thousands of years. And people have long looked to birds to explain humans. For Aristotle, birds were one of the nonhuman species closest to us. The similarities are noted, however, en route to arguing that human beings are distinct, unique, and elevated over the rest of nature.

People constantly cherry-pick examples from nature to defend our behaviour or social arrangements as “natural,” and birds play a major role in this work of political and cultural self-justification.

In this episode I reflect on my own relationship with my local birds in the context of this centuries-old double logic, why we find birds both uncanny and appealing, and what it means to live in community with nonhuman animals.

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