Eyewitness Virtual Reality: Bird

Eyewitness Virtual Reality: Bird is an educational video game made for the Eyewitness Virtual Reality Series, by DK Multimedia and released for Windows in 1995. The game is based on the Eyewitness first season episode Bird, and opens with the entire opening sequence for Bird.

## Setting

This game is set in a version of the Eyewitness Museum that, like the programmes, is shaped like the Eyewitness eye logo and has a similar design with white walls and a floor of polished wood.

## Sections

On arriving in the game, a map of the Eyewitness Museum is shown for the game. A navigation of the Museum is given, showing how to use the features and also the catalogue that contains a picture of every exhibit in the museum. The option is given here to either go on a guided tour, create your own tour or roam the museum freely. The sections of the museum are:

* Outer corridor – Birds in Culture
* Left sclera – Behaviour Room
* Upper gallery
* Iris – Further Cultural Birds
* Pupil – Aviary
* Right sclera – Anatomy Room
* Bottom-right edge – Store

### Birds in Culture

Almost the entire outer corridor looks at the different roles that birds have played in culture – in here are artworks, sculptures and artefacts all related to birds in some way, including a stone-carved artist’s impression of an Archaeopteryx. The left-hand end of the corridors has a full totem pole topped with the Thunderbird.

The area of the corridor opposite the entrance has an area about bird conservation, including a stuffed kakapo and eskimo curlew, outlining different conservation methods, showcasing different pollution threats and types of habitat destruction, the pet trade and a world map showing sixteen threatened species of bird (the corncrake, red-breasted goose, Sokoke scops owl, white-necked picathartes, pink pigeon, golden-shouldered parrot, takahe, kagu, monkey-eating eagle, Japanese crane, European black vulture, whooping crane, California condor, resplendent quetzal, indigo macaw and St Vincent parrot).

The inner corridor (around the ‘iris’ of the eye shape) also contains cultural artefacts about birds.

### Aviary

Near the middle of the Aviary is a globe that allows the players to see what habitats occur in each of the major biogeographic regions (Nearctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical, Palearctic, Oriental and Australasian regions and Antarctica), with small written descriptions of what birds live in these habitats.

Around the outer wall of the Aviary are a range of large wall pictures depicting a group of birds (the paddlers – consisting of waterfowl, grebes and loons, birds of prey, game birds and pigeons, swifts and hummingbirds, waders – including herons, storks, ibises, flamingos and true wading birds, songbirds, seabirds, domesticated birds, owls, flightless birds, parrots and woodpeckers and toucans) – clicking the picture showcases a range of species from within that group, while surrounding the picture are a series of artefacts and artworks that relate to that animal.

The Aviary also contains an elevator to go to different floors in Eyewitness Virtual Reality. While Bird and Cat were accessible, there were two inaccessible floors for Dinosaur (later becoming Dinosaur Hunter) and Shark (which never materialised) – Earth Quest is not mentioned here.

### Upper Gallery

This small single corridor, accessed via a staircase, provides information about bird flight patterns, how to watch birds and the equipment to use, a section that shows how different birds see the world and a couple of standalone displays. This gallery overlooks the Aviary, which has a hummingbird hovering above the room.

### Anatomy Room

The Anatomy Room contains a central exhibit that allows the player to look at all layers of a rock dove, including the live animal, the muscles, organs and the skeleton. This room has wall-based exhibits about the feathers of birds, the wings and ways that bird fly, respiration systems, record-breaking birds, bird senses, beaks, digestion, eggs, legs and feet and skeletons.

This section includes a game, in which the player can pick any of six birds (a crossbill, eagle, night heron, hummingbird, flamingo or woodpecker), and then choose what food it eats and what human tool corresponds to its bill shape.

### Behaviour Room

The Behaviour Room has a central booth where the player can discover how and why birds produce a range of songs and calls, including lyrical songs, differentiating between similar birds’ songs, mimicry, choruses and contact, alarm, nonvocal and unusual calls.

Around the outer wall of this room is information about bird feeding behaviour, social behaviour, intelligence, defence, migration, courtship, nesting, hatching and care for offspring.

### Store

Located next to the museum’s exit, the Store contains several things that can be printed out for use at home including stationery and posters, as well as a sound library and images to use as screensavers.

## Errors and corrections

In the Aviary, a wall video in the Bird of Prey section has footage of a California condor which is described in both the video title and the narration as an Andean condor.

In the Behaviour Room, a great spotted woodpecker is incorrectly identified as an acorn woodpecker.