Back in 2015, a music album inspired by the sounds of endangered birds in South America raised more than $15,000 for two bird conservation charities in the region. Fast forward to today, and we’re once again seeing (or rather, hearing) the beautiful collaboration of music and conservation.
A Guide to the Birdsong of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean is a 10-track record that sample recordings of endangered, vulnerable or near threatened birds from across the region, with each track composed by artists from the same country.
“The main impulse here is conservation but of course there’s an artistic challenge too,” said Robin Perkins, 33, a record producer from Manchester who leads the project.
The song of the black catbird – with its flute-like chirps and screeching single-note squalls – was once heard across Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico until large-scale farms began to destroy its habitat. But using recordings the black catbird’s song, a Belizean ground called the Garifuna Collective have immortalized the bird’s call in their new song.
Overall, the record may be pleasing to the ear, but its creators say it is also a call to arms. “This is an emblematic album for a bigger problem: we’ve just featured 10 species of birds, but it speaks to the destruction of the habitats, and that songs across South and Central America are disappearing,” said Perkins.
