'The Residence' in review

A Netflix birder murder mystery reminds me not to take birding too seriously.

Happy May! This newsletter is coming to you from Carnegie Mellon’s campus, where I’ve been holed up every day since last Tuesday, April 29, when a derecho¹ swept through Pittsburgh and took out many, many trees and my electricity. Duquesne Light Company has promised that we should have power by today, May 6, but we are no longer feeling optimistic. A full week without power! Michael has been calling it “camping at home,” which is probably the only way I will ever get Michael to go camping with me.

We have been very lucky that the weather has been so perfect this week. It hasn’t gotten too cold at night, and it hasn’t gotten too hot during the day. We’ve also been lucky that Michael has an office with functional electricity and wifi on CMU’s campus, and there’s food aplenty in the many dining halls and cafes. Our apartment and car were perfectly safe, too, whereas many of our neighbors had trees fall on their houses.

My beloved Frick Park has also suffered, losing many huge trees that were seemingly tipped over from the roots, torn from the ground in one big gust. One section of Clayton Hill, where I look for warblers every spring, was completely destroyed with something like 30-40 trees down. Trees have continued to fall throughout the week thanks to additional storms and apparent instability caused by the first one. This has made birding a bit scary, if not completely impossible in some sections.

Michael at Frick Park—on the part of the trail that’s been cleared! (Photo by me)

All things considered, not having a functional washer/dryer and having to throw out our refrigerated groceries seems quite lucky. We also have a gas stove and a gas water heater, so life can continue mostly as normal. The birds, too, seem to have continued on; in fact, some birds seem to be quite interested in the downed trees, pulling worms and other goodies from the exposed roots. We witnessed two yellow-billed cuckoos interacting above the massive section of treefall pictured above; one was even carrying sticks! Was their nest affected? Or are they taking advantage of all the freshly fallen branches to collect primo sticks for future chicks?

In addition to the derecho, my sixth Spring Migration has been a bit harder than usual this year. My job has been busy, and PT appointments for my knee have filled the extra hours in my week that once belonged to birding. I haven’t been in Pittsburgh for several weekends this spring and usually miss out on the exciting birds my friends text each other about in a group chat. The constant rain has made it hard to do quick outings. And I continue to really, really miss all the beautiful parks and habitats in Madison.

So in lieu of a celebration of all the wonderful migrants I’ve seen or will see this month, I thought I’d write about the birds in a TV show that was recommended to me by so many people I lost count: The Residence, a fun, quirky murder mystery in the vein of Knives Out that takes place in the White House and features a detective whose entire personality is birding.

I won’t give away any spoilers here, but I will go through some of the show’s birding flaws and successes, and I’ll tell you why, despite a few errors, this show delighted me and prompted a little bit of healthy self-reflection, too.

The premise of the show is this:

A White House usher is found dead during a State Dinner. The Metropolitan Police Department of DC gets jurisdiction over the case and brings in a private detective, Cordelia Cupp (played by Uzo Aduba), who is known for her ability to solve unsolvable cases. Detective Cupp fits the bill of many TV detectives: eccentric but brilliant, possessing some sort of special ability (almost like magic) that enables them to see what others miss.

In Detective Cupp’s case, her special ability is birding. She has birded all over the world and racked up an impressive life list, and it’s her Always Be Birding attitude that helps her solve cases. Throughout the show, she will literally stop working on the case to go out onto the White House lawn and look at birds. (At night. Which is an issue I will discuss in detail shortly.) Everyone else gets really annoyed with her because she talks about birds so much, which is a detail that I love.

But first, the errors.

You’ll know if you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while that bird errors on TV shows irritate me, even though the mistake is usually for a good reason (like protecting native birds).

One thing I appreciate about The Residence is that the writers actually attempted to do their due diligence, hiring legendary birder and bird illustrator Kenn Kaufman as a bird consultant. (Kaufman gets a shoutout in the show when Detective Cupp calls him on her way back from the airport, filling him in on the birds she saw on her trip). With Kaufman’s help, the show was able to incorporate some amazing birds into Detective Cupp’s monologues, including a dimorphic jewel-babbler, a yellow-throated longclaw, a tuamotu sandpiper, and a Malaysian rail-babbler. (Notice: two babblers are referenced! They’re not in the same family, but still. I learned in a fun podcast recommended by my friend Alex that TV writers often use the names of birds that sound “funny,” and I think a babbler probably fits that bill.)

Still, despite Kaufman’s best efforts, the writers made a few choices that didn’t quite satisfy. I have grouped these into “bird errors” (when a specific bird referenced does not make sense), and “birder errors” (when a specific action taken by Detective Cupp does not make sense):

Bird errors:

1. Most of the action of this show takes place during one night at the White House—and when I say night, I mean after 11 PM. So how does Detective Cupp go out onto the White House lawn and see a song sparrow after 11 PM? To the show’s credit, there’s a joke in this scene about how a fox sparrow would have been more exciting—so true, IYKYK—but actually any sparrow at this time of night would have been quite strange.

   

   A song sparrow that I most definitely did not see at night. (Photo by me)

2. There’s an egregious CGI “falcon” that takes center stage in one episode. It’s not a real falcon and it does not resemble any species of falcon I’ve ever seen. Kaufman has defended this bird as a metaphorical falcon. But even metaphors can be grounded in reality, can’t they? Why not attempt to make it look like a real species of falcon? And why is it flying around at night? And why does Detective Cupp keep talking about wanting to see a generic “falcon” without specifying which type of falcon she wants to see? It’s inconsistent with her character, who, when talking about other birds, seems to derive great joy from citing the complete name of the species.

3. The “purple grackle” in Episode 1 caused a bit of an online frenzy in the birder community, because many of us would simply call a common grackle a common grackle. In fact, when I heard Detective Cupp say “purple grackle” on the show, I instantly thought it was wrong and rolled my eyes. However, there IS a subspecies of grackle called a purple grackle, and while this subspecies is often contentious, it’s possible that a really detail-oriented, obsessive birder like Detective Cupp would care about this subspecies. But again, if she cares about a purple grackle, why would she NOT care about a particular species of falcon?

   1. Kaufman also defends the purple grackle, saying that Detective Cupp is trying to see all the birds on Teddy Roosevelt’s White House list, which she has literally printed out so she can cross off various species throughout the case. Kaufman also claims Detective Cupp is enough of an expert that she’d easily ID a purple grackle. I guess so, but this also brings some of the show’s other mistakes (ahem, CGI falcon) into sharper focus.

4. When Detective Cupp hopes to see a northern saw-whet owl on the White House lawn, I scoffed. Impossible! Do you know how many attempts it takes to see a saw-whet owl? Detective Cupp has ONE DAY to see one—and yet, she does! She crosses it off her list with satisfaction. How??

   1. In this scene, when Detective Cupp gets her owl, the chief of police—who kindly humors her when she talks about birds, and is actually one of the only characters who does so—says, “Always good when you get an owl.” I loved this because it’s true, and I felt like the show was winking at me and all the other birders out there. I could almost forgive the ease with which Detective Cupp found the saw-whet.

5. There is one bird-related story that Detective Cupp uses to solve the case: she says that northern mockingbirds flash their wings at insects to “make them blink.”² Obviously she’s not referring to them literally blinking their eyeballs, but she means that mockingbirds startle insects into revealing their locations. This is actually not proven to be true; we don’t know why mockingbirds flash their wings. This seems like a detail Detective Cupp would care about, especially since she always leaves room for doubt and never treats anything as a given.

Birder errors:

1. Detective Cupp keeps going out onto the White House lawn, AT NIGHT, IN THE DARK, and scanning the trees with her binoculars, looking for birds. Binoculars do not magically make it easy for you to see in the dark. In fact, after dusk, they become almost completely useless. Even if it was daytime, Detective Cupp would probably not scan the trees with her binoculars first; she would look with her eyes, trying to detect movement, and then raise her binoculars.

2. When Detective Cupp is on the beach looking for a tuamotu sandpiper, she is standing at the edge of the ocean, LOOKING OUT AT THE HORIZON with her binoculars. This was really strange to me, because sandpipers, typically, are found on the shore, not in vast expanses of open ocean. There were no visible sandbars on screen, nowhere for a shorebird to go. I looked it up and learned that tuamotu sandpipers are often seen on tiny atolls, which are islands made of coral reef. Okay, fine, maybe she should look out at the water. But she still stands in one place, day after day, looking for this bird, rather than walking along the shoreline. No wonder she hasn’t found it yet, in my opinion.

   

   Insert Spongebob-style narration: Ah, ze ocean. Ze sandpipers. Ze sandbars where ze sandpipers like to go. (Photo by me)

And now for the successes!

Despite the errors, the show did some good things, too!

1. When Detective Cupp is looking for a nighthawk, the show actually uses the correct call that a common nighthawk makes—I called it out before the character did. It’s rare for a show to care about the proper bird calls, so this was deeply satisfying to me.

2. Though in practice, Detective Cupp does not actually do this, she does say, “You don’t pick up your binoculars until you know what you’re looking at.” This is one of the many birding-related nuggets of wisdom that Detective Cupp applies to the case, and I like that the writers made these little connections, showing the viewer that the lessons you learn from birding can be helpful in life, too!

3. At one point, Detective Cupp goes out into the jungle in Ecaudor in search of her nemesis bird: the giant antpitta. Some commenters have shared that this is an easy bird to get if you just go to the right place, so why was Detective Cupp choosing to struggle? Kaufman defends the choice as being in line with her character, saying she would rather suffer in the wilderness to see a bird on her own terms than go to a place where they’re basically domesticated. I personally loved this scene because Detective Cupp is determined not to leave her little hut in the wild until she sees the bird, but everyone at work keeps bothering her. Ultimately, even though she really, really doesn’t want to, she has to give up on her nemesis bird and start working the case again. Then, after she’s already abandoned her hut, we see her now-empty room: where there’s a giant antpitta literally sitting there, cocking its head. It came in through the open window. Of course this would happen! Her nemesis bird shows up at the perfectly WRONG time, and Detective Cupp misses the bird. Again.

Greater roadrunners were my nemesis bird for a hot second, but my friends took me to a nature preserve in Vegas and we saw TWO! Here’s one looking feisty. Can’t you tell they’re in the cuckoo family, with that long long tail and sneaky little face? (Photo by me.)

Is birding essentially a magical power?

After watching the show, I’ve had several non-birding friends ask me if the characterization of Detective Cupp is accurate. Is birding really this powerful? Here are my two cents:

-Are birders really more observant than non-birders?

I believe that birding enables a person to tune into certain things a bit better, like sounds. I am very attuned to sounds and constantly listening for birds calls. However, I don’t believe birding has made me more observant in general. In fact, I’m pretty sure that because I’m focusing on birds, I’m NOT focusing on other things, like people. I cannot remember a face to save my life. This turns into a bit of a nightmare when I’m, for example, selling tickets at a film festival for work, and customers come up to me and say, “Do you remember me?” and I absolutely do not.

I also could not tell you any car-related details. I hardly even recognize my own car when I see it in a parking lot.

It’s very possible that people who are more observant in general would be quite good at birding. In the case of Detective Cupp, I think her predisposition toward observation has probably contributed to her love of birding, rather than vice versa.

-Are birders really birding all the time?

Yes. This is one of the things I love so much about the show. I love the way Detective Cupp goes birding while there’s a body growing cold inside the White House and everyone’s waiting on her to solve the case. I love how Ken Marino’s character, a non birder, gets SO ANNOYED by her. It’s a parody, of course, but it feels very true.

In the last six years, I have run into many people out on the trail during spring migration who are supposed to be working. Watching Detective Cupp do her thing, I’m reminded of the benefits of working for yourself. I aspire to that level of control over my workday!

-Are birders full of bird facts that they spice into everyday conversation?

Yes. I think, when it comes down to it, birders are sort of know-it-alls. We love to know things, things that other people just walk right by and don’t pay attention to. We love a fun fact. We love being able to tell birds apart based on little, hardly noticeable details that the average human would never pick up on. Birding gives us a sense of achievement, of victory, of possessing secret knowledge about the world. Who doesn’t want secret knowledge?? Heck, I just listed all the flaws in a TV show because it gave me gleeful pleasure akin to finding a typo in a published book. Tee hee! I’m so clever!

This is one of the things I keep coming back to when I think about the relative bird successes and errors in this show. There are a lot of really good asides and references that are clearly intended for the birders in the audience. So why the CGI falcon? It makes me think that, sometimes, the writers were poking fun at us. The show is a comedy—Detective Cupp identifies a Malaysian rail-babbler in the White House wallpaper, for goodness’ sake—and I think a lot of the bird references that don’t quite work can serve to remind us all to stop taking ourselves so seriously. Birding is fun, and the fact that we can all watch Uzo Aduba on a hit Netflix show solve a mystery while spouting off bird facts is just an absolute delight. Let’s stop writing down all the errors in our Notes app and appreciate the bigger picture.

In fact, let’s stop worrying about all the birds we’re NOT seeing, all the warblers that are getting away, all the bird-related texts that aren’t being answered—and appreciate the fact that there are birds, period. I can see a chimney swift right now, zipping over the quad at CMU. It came here from South America, can you believe it? How incredibly lucky are we to be on the same planet as chimney swifts?

Shout out to everyone out there who recommended The Residence to me. There are a lot of you, and I appreciate you all. I hope there’s another season. I hope I can watch it on my TV and not on my tiny cell phone screen in the dark.

Happy Spring Migration, however you celebrate!

Holly

1. Some are calling it a derecho, some are saying it doesn’t meet the criteria. I leave it to the weatherpeople to duke it out.

2. The “make them blink” storyline is the one part of Detective Cupp’s logic that ultimately does not pay off when she solves the case, and it felt like a pretty big writing mistake to me. If you’ve seen the show, here’s the Reddit thread where other viewers like me express their confusion. It contains spoilers, so proceed with caution!