I don’t know when I started noticing them more — the birds. Maybe it was during a season when everything felt like too much. My mind was loud, my body tired, and even beauty felt out of reach. I remember sitting outside, numb and overstimulated, when a small sparrow landed on a fence post. It didn’t do anything extraordinary. It just existed. And for a few seconds, I was still.

That quiet shift isn’t just in the imagination. Research increasingly shows that encounters with birds — even brief or indirect ones — can regulate our nervous systems. A 2022 research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, published in Scientific Reports, found that listening to birdsong lowered symptoms of depression, anxiety, and paranoia, and that the benefits lasted well beyond the moment of hearing them. Another classic study, published in Science (Ulrich, 1984), showed that patients recovering from surgery healed faster if they could look out at a view of trees rather than a brick wall. Later experiments found that even photographs or paintings of nature — including birds — can measurably lower blood pressure, slow heart rate, and restore attention.

This fascinates me: the idea that a simple visual of a bird — perched on a branch, wings half-raised, or caught in stillness — can have a physiological effect on us. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (2018) tested virtual reality nature scenes with birds and found reductions in stress, while another study on hospital art (Nanda et al., 2012) confirmed that images of nature, even indoors, create a measurable sense of calm. These studies suggest something profound: our bodies don’t need the real forest or the live bird to begin softening. Representation itself — a brushstroke, a painted wing, a still moment on paper — can invite that same restoration.

Birds are present in a way humans often forget how to be. They don’t rehearse conversations, catastrophize about tomorrow, or question their worth. They respond instinctively to wind, light, and sound. Watching them models a kind of embodied presence — and something in us mirrors it. Shoulders drop. Breathing deepens. The brain shifts out of fight-or-flight. Even if only for a moment, you return to yourself.

That’s part of why I paint them. Not just because they’re beautiful, but because they offer something our culture rarely does: permission to pause. Their presence has been shown to lower cortisol levels, to restore attention, to soften the nervous system. When I paint an egret resting in reeds, or a swallow mid-flight, I’m not only trying to capture its form. I’m trying to hold onto that physiological invitation they extend to us — the reminder that rest is possible, that stillness is safe.

The birds in my paintings are not decorative objects. They are companions. They stand in for calm, instinct, rhythm. Some hover in flight. Others barely move. All of them carry, in their own way, the same message psychology research keeps circling back to: that contact with birds improves mood, reduces stress, and restores attention.

So if you’ve been carrying too much or forgetting what stillness feels like, maybe start here. With a bird. With your gaze resting for a few seconds on something alive, light, and free.

You can see ‘The Air Between US’ Collection here → [link]

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Laura Wilkins