Jane Kim and the Wall of Birds

BirdNote^®
Jane Kim and the Wall of Birds
Written by Ariana Remmel

This is BirdNote.

Walk into the visitor center at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and you’ll be greeted by the Wall of Birds.

Jane Kim: So you are craning your neck upwards and you'll see a world map. And on this world map you are gonna see painted in life size all the modern families of birds that were described in 2015 . And then when you walk up a stairwell, you're gonna be greeted with a parade of extinct animals that belong to the evolutionary history of birds.

That’s artist and scientific illustrator Jane Kim, who partnered with the Cornell Lab to create this epic mural celebrating the evolution and diversity of birds. In total, Jane illustrated 270 life-sized portraits of living birds, their ancestors, and a caiman to acknowledge their reptilian kin.

         [Caiman bellows]

The living birds are all rendered in full color while the extinct species are sketched in black and grey. They range in size from the 30-foot-long, feathered dinosaur Yutyrranus hauli to the tiny Marvelous Spatuletail hummingbird.

         [Marvelous Spatuletail]

With so many portraits, the mural is about the size of a tennis court and best viewed from the visitor center's second story balcony. Jane says it was tricky to make fine details stand out from that distance, especially for little brown birds — like the Chiming Wedgebill from Australia.

         [Chiming Wedgebill]

Jane Kim: It's really sandy and sort of blends into the backdrop. But if you look closely at all the birds, there are kind of these colors that you wouldn't normally expect. There's like lots of hits of ultramarine, blues and oranges, and like pinks.

The Lab’s scientific advisors worked with Jane to accurately capture each animal’s features and behaviors.

         [Red-faced Mousebird]

Jane Kim:  Like, I love the Red-faced Mousebird, and it's like actually clinging to the side. You know, we've got like wood creepers that would be shown on the trunk of a tree. Where we have waterfowl that's actually looking like it's swimming. And I think that that kind of gave a lot more life rather than sort of a static field guide, depiction of the birds.

Like the Montezuma Oropendula, an iconic species from Central America that’s known for their bubbly, undulating calls. Jane depicted the bird mid-performance, hanging upside down with wings outstretched and bill open in song. 

         [Montezuma Oropendula]

The map reflects where each bird lives. That Red-faced Mousebird clings to the southern coast of Africa. The Spatuletail displays his elaborate feathers on the west coast of South America. A Bermuda Petrel sails the open ocean.

         [Bermuda Petrel]

Jane Kim:  When you see a map, I think as humans we're already sort of, gravitating to place as, where do I belong on this map? Where have I been, where do I wanna go? And so you're invited into a shared world with all of these birds on a map. It does give a sense of how no matter where you are, we're so connected by an explosion of diversity of these species.

After two and a half years of research, design, and installation, Jane officially completed the Wall of Birds in December 2015. In the ten years since, researchers have continued to expand our knowledge about birds.

Jane Kim:  We know a lot of new information now. And that mural was a timestamp, but that timestamp should hopefully remind us that that is the nature of science and that it's always evolving.

You can learn more about the Wall of Birds when you visit our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Ariana Remmel.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Marvelous Spatuletail ML620983908 recorded by and ML84883751 recorded by Andrew Spencer; Red-faced Mousebird ML278769 recorded by Peter Boesman; Bermuda Petrel ML117645 recorded by Mark E. Reaves.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote December 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# KimJ-01-2025-12-01    KimJ-01