Clever Birds! (8 Photos)

The city has feathers.

Eight murals bring birds to the scale of the city, with the surrounding architecture completing each scene.

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🐟 Un martin pêcheur à Saint Michel — By A-MO in Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷

A-MO painted this kingfisher in May 2021 at 10 Place du Maucaillou in Bordeaux’s Saint-Michel district. His official project page calls the mural Un martin pêcheur à Saint Michel. Its blue and orange feathers are built from overlapping tags, a technique A-MO calls “Paintag.” More: Kingfisher by A-MO in Bordeaux.

💡 Nerd Fact: In the Common Kingfisher, the blue and cyan feathers contain no blue pigment. Their color is produced by nanoscale feather structures that scatter light, while the orange plumage is pigment-based, as University of Cambridge research explains.

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🟦 The Pixel Bird — By Ricky Said and DISE in Settimo Torinese, Italy 🇮🇹

Created for Settimo Città dei Colori in 2020, The Pixel Bird turns a robin into a field of red, blue, white, and black blocks across an apartment façade. DISE’s official project page says the bird carries the red and blue of Settimo’s emblem and that the pair painted about 575 “pixels” in seven days. In his original project post, Ricky Said described the work as a dedication to Settimo Torinese and the city’s transformation. More: The Pixel Bird.

💡 Nerd Fact: In orientation experiments with European robins, researchers found that the birds’ magnetic compass depends on both the wavelength and intensity of ambient light.

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🦚 Peacock — By Jan Is De Man in Vinkeveen, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Jan Is De Man’s official project page dates Peacock to 2023 and places it at Groenlandse Kade 17A in Vinkeveen. The commission began with a request for something beautiful inspired by the homeowners’ dogs; his unexpected answer was a peacock on the small wall beside the gate. Its long blue train follows the brickwork and the curve of the path. More: Peacock by Jan Is De Man and 8 Happy 3D Artworks by Jan Is De Man.

💡 Nerd Fact: The display usually called a peacock’s tail is not the anatomical tail. It is a train of elongated tail coverts; shorter, stiffer true tail feathers support the fan, as San Diego Zoo’s species account notes.

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📐 Magpie — By Annatomix in Birmingham, UK 🇬🇧

This blue magpie fills a concrete recess on Dudley Street, its tail spreading across the back wall while its head turns toward the open space. The geometry is not actually based on origami: Annatomix says her influences come from geometry, low-poly modeling, crystalline structures, and architecture. Photo by Vera Mills; the location and credit were documented in 2021. More: Magpie by Annatomix.

💡 Nerd Fact: A 2008 mark-test experiment reported mirror self-recognition in Eurasian magpies, the first such evidence then published for a non-mammalian species. The authors interpreted the result as evidence that a mammalian neocortex is not required for this form of self-directed behavior.

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🦜 Regreso a casa — By Carlos Alberto GH in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico 🇲🇽

Carlos Alberto GH titled this anamorphic mural Regreso a casa. Painted at Plaza del Artesano in Palenque, it refers to the scarlet macaw’s return to the Palenque jungle. The bird appears to break through the wall, while the seated figure makes the illusion’s scale feel even more dramatic. More: Regreso a casa in Palenque.

💡 Nerd Fact: Scarlet macaws had been absent from Palenque for more than 70 years before the releases began. A scientific account of the reintroduction records six soft releases totaling 92 birds between April 2013 and June 2014, with 92 percent surviving to August 2014.

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🐦 Superb Fairy-wren — By Geoffrey Carran in Carlton North, Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺

Geoffrey Carran completed this Carlton North mural in March 2022 at 172 Curtain Street. The bright male Superb Fairy-wren sits among pink blossoms on the long gray wall. The designers later said the mural gave their “North Carlton Art House” its name. Photo by George Kayne. More: Superb Fairy-wren in Melbourne.

💡 Nerd Fact: Superb Fairy-wrens are cooperative breeders, but social parenthood and genetic parenthood often diverge. A field study of pre-dawn mating reported extra-pair paternity in 76 percent of offspring and 95 percent of broods; females made pre-dawn visits to the males later identified as the sires.

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🪶 El destello Maria Mulata — By Yurika MDC in Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴

Yurika MDC painted El destello Maria Mulata in 2013 at Plaza de la Trinidad in Getsemaní. The artist’s own account says the mural grew from a children’s story told by a neighborhood resident: once-colorful María Mulata birds saved a burning village, and smoke turned their plumage black, though sunlight still reveals their hidden colors. Yurika lets those blues and violets break through the ochre wall. More: El destello Maria Mulata in Cartagena.

💡 Nerd Fact: “María mulata” is Cartagena’s local name for the Great-tailed Grackle, Quiscalus mexicanus, rather than a separate species. The city’s official biodiversity catalogue lists it as a native member of the family Icteridae.

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🎶 Magistra — By Anna Taut and KKade in Hamburg, Germany 🇩🇪

Painted from August 27 to September 6, 2025, at Eimsbütteler Chaussee 79–81, Magistra shows two fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) inside a decorative floral frame. The inscription refers to the Latin phrase Natura est artis magistra—“Nature is the teacher of art.” Anna Taut and Pascal Flühmann (KKade) developed the concept with biodiversity researchers in an InUrFaCE workshop, using the façade to make biodiversity loss visible in the city. Photo by LuKutz. More: Birds!.

💡 Nerd Fact: Fieldfares vary their nest defense according to the predator. In an experimental study, most pairs left silently when shown a stoat model but attacked a hooded crow model, ejecting feces that the researchers described as potentially harmful to avian predators.

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