Society of Crows
Dr. Rob Butler

Pallas Mail • May 2025
 

Society of Crows is a cinematic meditation on the intelligence, mystery, and cultural resonance of crows—an exploration that finds its intellectual foundation in the life’s work of Dr. Rob Butler. As one of Canada’s leading ornithologists, Dr. Butler has spent decades studying the social behaviour and ecological importance of corvids, specifically, the crow. His pioneering research and poetic reflections have helped shape public understanding of these birds not only as species of study, but as creatures with deep symbolic and cultural value.

Mike McKinlay brought me aboard to visually interpret this relationship—between bird and human, nature and knowledge—through a series of atmospheric and sculptural photographs created specifically for his now released film; Society of Crows. These images serve as a visual echo to Dr. Butler’s work: haunting, intelligent, and reverent. The resulting assets blur the line between documentation and art, offering a photographic language that complements the documentary’s narrative structure and Dr. Butler’s lifelong pursuit of connecting science with wonder.

Together, Butler’s science, McKinlay’s storytelling and my photography helped create a multidisciplinary portrait of a man & species that has lived alongside us—observing, adapting, and surviving—longer than we often care to notice. 

Society of Crows is not just about the birds. It’s about how we see them—and, through them, how we might begin to see ourselves.

To see the full project edit; https://www.brendanmeadows.com/project/20701