2024 | Portugal, United States | Documentary,Experimental,Feature

Cagarros Assembly

  • 0 mins
  • Director | Ellie Ga
  • Writer | Ellie Ga
  • Producer | Ellie Ga

STATUS: Development

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For several months each year, a haunting sound envelops the coasts of the Azores as they become home to a multitude of returning cagarro seabirds (Cory’s shearwater, Calonectris borealis). For several weeks each year, as the breeding season reaches its peak, thousands of fledglings crash into street lights and fall disorientated from the sky. Blind and vulnerable to artificial lights at the beginning of their lives, survivors spend most of their remaining life at sea, with a noisy return once a year to find the same nest and mate. This is the world that my project inhabits. Marine biologists monitor nests on cliffs, neuroscientists create bird vision experiments, and geographers map the emission of light. After nightfall, volunteers search for fallen birds and I create listening sessions on cliff edges with the visually impaired community. Cagarros Assembly will explore the effects of light pollution, disorientation, bird perception, and the challenges of navigating a world that privileges sight.

Seabirds light pollution women in science blindness sound disorientation