Birds of Shakespeare
![starling-painting-missy-dunaway_960x600_acf_cropped](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2023/01/starling-painting-missy-dunaway_960x600_acf_cropped.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The common starling
![Detail from Great Cormorant painting by Missy Dunaway great cormorant](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/10/Great-Cormorant-by-Missy-Dunaway-sm.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The great cormorant
In his plays Shakespeare deploys the cormorant as a symbol of insatiable hunger and gluttony, drawing also on the bird’s reputation as a portent of doom and evil.
![Pheasant painting](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/09/Pheasant-painting-fb.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The ring-necked pheasant
Artist Missy Dunaway explores references to the pheasant in “The Winter’s Tale” on her bird-watching expedition through Shakespeare’s works.
![Kingfisher painting kingfisher painting](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/08/Kingfisher-painting-72dpi-1.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The kingfisher
Artist Missy Dunaway explores references to the kingfisher in two Shakespeare plays, King Lear and 1 Henry VI.
![eagle objects eagle objects](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/07/Eagle-Objects-1.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The golden eagle
With the golden eagle, we continue following artist Missy Dunaway on a bird-watching expedition through Shakespeare’s works. The eagle soars throughout Shakespeare’s world, Renaissance literature, and beyond – symbolizing strength, power, and the divine.
![blackbird painting blackbird painting](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/06/blackbird-painting-fb.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The Eurasian blackbird
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom sings a tune about blackbirds to keep up his courage when he finds himself in strange circumstances.
![cuckoo cuckoo](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/05/cuckoo-fb.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The cuckoo
Thanks to its peculiar reproductive cycle, distant migration, and haunting melodies, the cuckoo may hold the title for most folklore among Shakespeare’s birds.
![Barnacle Goose Barnacle Goose](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/04/Barnacle-Goose-sm.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Birds of Shakespeare: The barnacle goose
The barnacle goose, referenced in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” was an unmistakable symbol of metamorphosis for a 17th-century audience. It was commonly believed that the barnacle goose evolved from driftwood. Artist Missy Dunaway shares her painting of this fascinating bird along…