Our Birds: Through a Lens of Hope

A stunning new photographic exhibition in the museum lobby captures North American bird life. The photographs come from Gonzalo Giribet, Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

A professional invertebrate zoologist, Professor Giribet is a passionate wildlife photographer with a soft spot for our local birds. His work on invertebrate zoology has led to the discovery of hundreds of new species from around the world. 

His photographic work on birds, however, tells the story of the recovery of birds all around us, and how habitat restoration and conservation measures have brought back many birds that once were threatened and extremely rare. 

This photo series of North American birds started during the COVID pandemic, when Professor Giribet had to curtail his remote field work. Instead, driven by a need to be outdoors, he focused on our local habitats and its inhabitants. This is when he became familiar with some of our most precious flying neighbors, from piping plovers along our shores to the majestic and once threatened bald eagles, and discovered how our birds track seasons like clockwork.