The A Little Bird Told Me project engages with the nascent debate on the ethics of recording, translating, and communicating with non-human species. The power dynamic between recorder and recordee is troubled via sonic collaborations with a chattering (community) of Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) inhabiting Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London’s largest public square. Starlings are known for their mimicry of other birds and non-avian sounds, such as car alarms, mobile ringtones, and human speech. The species expert mimesis raises questions about how they participate in the oral histories of their human co-sounders. What are the Starlings’ ethics? Do Starlings do ethics? 

Through a mix of performative and speculative practices, including an unstable choral workshop in collaboration with Starlings, Logan and Thompson explore where the agency of people and nonhumans begins and ends.

Kevin Logan is an artist, researcher and educator based in London, UK. His work engages cross-disciplinary fields and incorporates installation, sound, moving-image and performance.

Mike Thompson is a design researcher and lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work employs participatory and making-led design methodologies to explore the intricacies of material participation, critically examining the real and imagined relations within human–nonhuman entanglements and promoting ecological perspectives.