Meet: Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park.

As part of the year-long Paradise exhibition at Proteus Gowanus, we will walk through the sounds of spring in Prospect Park. We will be silent, unplugged from all our devices, and “all ears” as birdsong (“the dawn chorus”) surrounds us in the midst of a borough of 2.5 million people. This will be a walking meditation, a natural concert, a rehabilitation of our urban-abused sense of hearing, and anything else you wish it to be.

New York City is in the Atlantic Flyway, the east coast’s major migration route for billions of birds moving northwards to their breeding grounds during spring. Prospect Park is a vital stopover for dozens of species heading further north, as well as those species that nest there. It is an avian paradise, constantly imperiled. The sun rises at 5:55 a.m. on May 1. This walk will be led by bird-listening and natural history blogger Matthew Wills.

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What Happened

John Burroughs will be featured in two short films, one early 20th C early color film and one by James Walsh shot from hand-colored lantern slides.

As part of the current exhibition in Observatory, John Burroughs at Slabsides, James Walsh will present a night of images of Burroughs drawn from the archives of the American Museum of Natural History.

To begin, Barbara Mathe, the AMNH archivist, will show a six minute film of Burroughs going about his daily routine at his summer home, Woodchuck Lodge, in the Catskill Mountains. This film is an early example of color film and the earliest color film in the AMNH collection. It was made using a process called “prizma” color, in which both sides of the positive film were coated with emulsion. One side was dyed blue and green, the other side red and yellow. When projected together the image is in natural color tones.

Next, Observatory will show James Walsh’s 24 minute video Burroughs (2008), which tells the story of Burroughs’ life and was shot from hand-colored lantern slides in the museum’s archive.

As a celebration of spring and the return of the birds, we’ll close the evening with a reading from Burroughs on his favorite theme, birdsong.