A Starling Celebration at The National Nordic Museum

Søren Solkær Sort Sol exhibition photograph of a Starling murmuration in The Netherlands.

by Hanae Bettencourt, Education Manager

Every once in a while, a partnership opportunity comes our way that seems to fit like a glove.

In spring of 2023, we were approached by Kate Dugdale, the National Nordic Museum’s Education and Interpretation Specialist with an inquiry to partner on an event in celebration of an upcoming photography exhibit featuring starling murmurations. 

Museum partnerships are a fun way to connect urban birds with culture and art. While European Starlings are seen across the United States, they aren’t commonly celebrated, due to their complicated history created by people. For this reason, we don’t have many opportunities to focus on them in our regular programming.

Introduced to the US in the 1890s, European Starlings quickly adapted to our environment and spread across North America, reaching populations of over 150 million nesting pairs by the 1970s. With their sheer numbers and aggressive feeding habits, they were quickly deemed an invasive species and vilified. But like all bird species on North America, their numbers have decreased over the last 50 years, and current populations have declined by about 50%.

This partnership with the National Nordic Museum felt like a good opportunity to offer a different perspective on European Starlings. Despite their introduction to our area, starlings are well suited to city life and offer people a glimpse at urban wildlife in the densest parts of the city. Why not take a moment a learn about these feathered neighbors of ours?

Working with Kate, I developed signage with short, digestible facts about starlings and an accompanying interactive worksheet for young exhibit visitors. The exhibit itself is a collection of large-scale striking photographs and has limited educational and interpretive signage, so it felt like a good way to add context to the beautiful images. 

Our partnership was capped off by an open to the public Family Day in January. Families of all ages stopped by the lobby of the museum to engage with our display of bird skin specimens, bird window collision prevention information, and a fun craft activity, that offered a birdy twist on a traditional Nordic project. Kate and I had the pleasure of greeting and educating more than 250 visitors of all ages.

I’m so glad we were able to partner with the National Nordic Museum on this event, as so many new connections were made. We were able to connect with another Seattle entity on a shared appreciation for birds, our corresponding communities were connected at the Family Day, and continents were connected via a common resident bird species, the European Starling. 

Providing National Nordic Museum visitors information about starlings and local conservation initiatives during Family Day.  

The European Starling

is a medium sized black bird with speckled purple-green iridescenct plumage. 

Just before dusk, Starlings form huge flocks, sometimes in the thousands, called murmurations. Together, they syncronously twist, turn, swoop, and swirl across the sky in beautiful shape-shifting clouds.

European Starlings were purposefully introduced into the United States by European colonizers in the 1890’s. The original 60 birds in New York’s Central Park reproduced and spread quickly across developed and other human-altered habitats. European Starlings were first recorded in Washington in 1943, only 53 years later.

Søren Solkær: Sort Sol Exhibit

Sort Sol, running December 9, 2023 – March 10, 2024 at The National Nordic Museum, features recent work by Danish photographer Søren Solkær (b. 1969). Solkær established his career in the early aughts with penetrating portraits of legendary performers Björk, Metallica, Paul McCartney, the White Stripes, Amy Winehouse, and many others. 

Solkaer’s Sort Sol is a photographic series that studies the murmurations of starlings. The Danish term “sort sol” refers to these murmurations, the forms of which temporarily obscure the sun. A “murmuration” is the form made by a flock in flight. The word derives from “murmur,” or the soft sound of the starlings’ flight calls and fluttering wings as they move together midair. Starling murmurations take myriad forms—from abstract to representational, and Solkær has captured this phenomenon across Europe since 2017. Occurring before dusk in the spring and fall months, the mysterious act may function as an open call to join the evening roost and provide protection against predators. While Solkær’s Sort Sol series celebrates this curious occurrence of shape-shifting starlings, it also pays homage to landscapes as subject matter in European paintings and Japanese woodblock prints. Featuring over 50 photographs and video art, Søren Solkær: Sort Sol is the first exhibition of this series in a US museum.

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