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Christian Cooper, Cattle Egrets, and Cinema
Lessons on reliance from an anachronism in film.
© Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren
Author Christian Cooper is never not birding — even at the movies. For season 8 of the Bring Birds Back, Christian shares the story of a bird out of place in the 2006 film Apocalypto. Listen to the full episode about birds on screen here and in your favorite podcast app.
BirdNote®
Christian Cooper, Cattle Egrets, And Cinema
Written by Ariana Remmel
This is BirdNote.
Author Christian Cooper is never not birding — even at the movies. Like when he was watching the 2006 film Apocalypto, an action thriller set in what is now Mexico during the Mayan empire.
[sounds from the film and/or projector shuttering]
Christina Cooper: So they show a river and they show a cattle egret at the river. And I'm like, 'Nope, no good'. And a lot of people would say, 'No, there are cattle egrets in Mesoamerica'. And that's correct, there are cattle egrets in Mesoamerica now.
[Western Cattle Egrets]
Western Cattle Egrets are common birds on several continents today, but they’re originally from Africa. The birds weren’t found in the Americas until the late 1800s – possibly because they were blown off course during migration.
Christian Cooper: And for me that's a perfect metaphor of the African diaspora experience; that we people of African descent got dragged across the ocean by no fault of our own. And yet here we are and we found a way to thrive and live here and make our way here just like the cattle egret. So to me, the cattle egret is the spirit of Black lives set loose into the air. So I just love the cattle egret.
[Western Cattle Egrets]
Hear more stories about birds on screen in season 8 of Bring Birds Back. Available in your favorite podcast app and on our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Jonese Franklin.
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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. Western Cattle-Egret ML654193779 recorded by Cullen Hanks, ML393944501 recorded by Helio Ruipérez, and ML200013391 recorded by Marcelo Jardim.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote July 2026
Narrator: Jonese Franklin
ID# PodBBB-49-2026-07-06 PodBBB-49
Jonese Franklin
Narrator