Links to sites featuring campus birds and Science Art

 

NEW update  Birds of Stanford website

 

 

-- includes coverage for 125 species seen many years on the academic reserve and 150 related essays from The Birder's Handbook (Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. 1988. Simon & Schuster, New York).
-- provides a printable Checklist of Campus Birds
-- features invited artists whose works are presented as Science Art (art that includes a caption providing a science lens)
-- includes a gallery of submitted photographs and artwork
-- identifies birds in four avian-rich campus areas: the Arboretum (including, the Mausoleum, the Cactus Garden and Memorial Marsh), the central Campus, the Dish area and Lake Lagunita
-- provides a form for submitting campus bird sightings and observations that will help annotate species coverage, and a form for submitting images to the website's Gallery


NEW addition  Art at Exits: Seeing Stanford Species website

 

 

-- exhibit and its web coverage began with ten works by Audubon featuring birds found on Stanford's main campus installed in nine buildings near exits opening toward areas the featured birds might be seen.
-- captions provide a science lens, campus locations of the species portrayed, any sustainability issues and related artwork that has been submitted
-- National Audubon Society provided digital images of the Audubons, VKK Signmakers printed the images and crafted and installed acrylic displays pro bono, while the Bill Lane Center for the American West, the Stanford Arts Institute (SAI), the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) and Science Art-Nature supported or sponsored the work
--November 2016 a digital display was posted in Y2E2, making it the 10th campus building to participate and the first to present the exhibit as a slide show. The show was sponsored by Jasper Ridge Biologial Preserve(JRBP) and features the Western Fence Lizard as the species seen near Y2E2. It includes five other "Stanford" speces involved in Y2E2 (and JRBP) research.


Green Library Bird Art Installation at the East Portal (near Coupa Cafe)

--wall of bird art is dedicated to Stanford President emeritus Donald Kennedy "to honor his support of Stanford and the natural world"
--includes nine paintings and drawings of campus birds by Darryl Wheye features
--images and Science Art captions are posted online.


A short paper on mimicry relevant to bird predation: Are there caterpillars on butterfly wings?

 

 

-- Prof. Paul Ehrlich and Darryl Wheye ask what effect such mimicry would have on birds and other predators. That is, would the markings on a chemically-defended larva that also appear on the wings of a butterfly, deter a predator that avoids the larva?
-- citizen science project has been posted through iNaturalist to find more examples of butterflies with larva-like patterns on their wings (See the example to the right.)
-- Interested in leading the citizen science project? Contact darrylw@stanford.edu


Hummingbird Garden planted at Green Library

 

 

-- the garden, planted in Fall 2015, is located behind the half-wall at the Library's East portal, which opens toward Coupa Cafe and Meyer Green.
-- the garden is an outgrowth of the Art at Exits (above) installation at Green Library, which presents Audubon's Anna's Hummingbird.
-- the garden is designed to provide year-round nectar for the three species of hummingbirds seen on campus (Anna's Allen's and Rufous Hummingbirds).


Birds of Stanford: 30 Species Seen on the Main Campus.

 

 

-- pocket-sized, 44-page booklet provides color photographs and brief accounts of 30 commonly seen campus species. Here's a sample page.
-- photographs by Rohan Kamath; text by Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy
-- available from the Stanford Bookstore ($8.99). Look in the 'All Things Stanford' section. If you don't see it, please ask customer service.


Registry of Bird Artists

 
 

-- registry of more than 100 international artists designed as an aid for writers seeking original art to accompany their publications
-- seeks to encourage the creation of great, biologically informative bird art (Science Art) to expand the publication and exhibition of high-end images and to broaden the audience interested in learning about advances in bird biology and challenges to conservation efforts
-- access the Registry's Science Art Exhibit
-- updating the artists' images and information and producing another virtual exhibit awaits funding. Contact darrylw@stanford.edu


Science Art

 

 

-- Science Art-Nature an NPO that provides information about Science Art (images of nature presented with a caption that provides a science lens). Among it's goals are the production of virtual Science Art Exhibits:

     "Windows on Evolution: An Artistic Celebration of Charles Darwin", launched Darwin's Day, 2013

     "Bringing Symposia to Life", inspired by the 2011 annual meeting of the AAAS in Washington, DC
     and supported in part by Stanford Arts Institute and the Center for Conservation Biology

     "The Art of Science", produced in conjunction with the 2010 Pacific Division AAAS meeting and      "supported in part by the Stanford Arts Institute and the Center for Conservation Biology

 

 

-- sample pages from Humans, Nature, and Birds: Science Art from Cave Walls to Computer Screens (Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy, 2008. Yale University Press, New Haven). Published with assistance from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Public Understanding of Science and Technology Program.
--
book shows how viewing images as "Science Art" can often provide insight into human attitudes toward animals and their environment, and sometimes provide insight into the results of research. Using a science "lens" when looking at the art may help viewers decode a truth about nature they might otherwise have overlooked, from conveying basic biology and natural history to tracking the effects of global climate change
--
book served as the basis for forming the NGO Science Art-Nature (above).


Please send questions or comments to: darrylw@stanford.edu