“Birds Have Procedures Too”

This article examines how bird movements take part in shaping both local airport operations and global air traffic infrastructure. Drawing on archival sources, observations, and visual materials, we examine different layers and regimes of knowledge production on avian migration in and around the global air traffic hub Frankfurt Airport, especially in bird strike prevention. By inquiring into the airspace and ground procedures of both birds and human infrastructure (where they overlap in avian habitats and migration routes), we make visible the mixed knowledges at work in emergent fields such as airport ecology, bird strike science, and multilayered surveillance. In doing so, we consider a plurality of mappings and orderings at the airport, as well as ways in which birds have managed to map their own procedures back onto airport operations.