Move Over, Music Giants: Album of Bird Calls Soars in the Charts

An album featuring the squawks and squeaks of 53 local endangered birds reached third place on the Top 50 music charts in Australia, ahead of international superstars, thus shedding a light on the precarious situation of many feathered species.

Songs of Disappearance features “a chorus of iconic cockatoos, the buzzing of bowerbirds, a bizarre symphony of seabirds, and the haunting call of one of the last remaining night parrots,” and includes a copy of The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020 detailing how to halt the disappearance of birds.

The 24-minute-long album opens with a musical collage of the 53 endangered species featuring violinist Simone Slattery, cofounder of the Bowerbird Collective. The following 20- to 30-seconds tracks are recordings of David Stewart who has been collecting wildlife sounds for the last 50 years. All proceeds from album sales go to BirdLife Australia. A similar project took shape in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean to fund the conservation efforts towards endangered birds in that part of the world.