The Raptor Center

This past semester in my biomimicry program I was looking into how nature creates color. I did a lot of research and fell down even more rabbit holes looking at berries, flowers, birds, coral, sea anemones, algae, to name just a few things. The more research I did, the more complicated I seemed to be making it and the more complicated it felt. I wrote up pages and pages of notes, I created diagrams upon diagrams.

As I researched I started to lean more into birds and into their wings more specifically. Some were so bright and colorful, some even iridescent. Some more muted tones of brown. But how did that all work? How was that color created?

Before studying biomimicry, I never would have wondered. I would have just thought how beautiful the colors on that bird was. Now I wanted to know more. Because in order to find solutions to problems using on nature’s wisdom, you have to understand nature’s wisdom.

So, having done more research than I could store in my head and knowing that I was at a point in my learning where I needed to actually connect the dots visually, the family and I headed to the Raptor center here in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.

It’s hard to explain how I would have experienced a place like this before I studied biomimicry other than I would have thought the birds were interesting and lovely. I probably would have noticed their shapes and maybe personalities and definitely their colors (as artists do).

But my experience this time was completely different. I was noticing how the claws were shaped and what they were made of and what their purpose would be in relation to eating/hunting/foraging/climbing. I was noticing how their heads turned, how deeply inset their eyes were, where their eyes were placed, how their eyelids were shaped and why they might be shaped that way.

Our guide was fantastic in their knowledge and I was soaking it all up and (amazingly) automatically thinking about how it could be applied to design over and over again! Whereas, previously I would have just thought it an interesting tidbit of knowledge.

And, of course, not forgetting my objective, I was able to get a closer look at the feathers and really see all the research I had done in action. I was able to listen to how some of the feathers make noise because of their shape and structure whereas some are nearly silent.

Beyond that, the Raptor Center also did speak about native habitats and Prairie Lands which also tied into other research I had been doing in sustainability and the effects of fossil fuels and mining, and reminds us once again that nature is an entire ecosystem. These birds aren’t just independent bits of nature. They are part of an ecosystem and we need all parts of that ecosystem healthy for them to thrive.

I walked away from the raptor center, realizing something had completely shifted this past semester. The first thing I said to my husband was that I wanted to find more places like this to visit this year. In the past I would have been inspired by their colors and shapes and would have imagined some sort of beautiful artwork (well, I still do to be honest because nature is beautiful). BUT, now the combination of the knowledge of the guides and seeing the organisms up close, with my studies in biomimicry have opened up a new world this past semester and I’m so excited to see where it takes me.