John Gordon/Listening to Birds: Birds on Parade

Tuesday, 21 August 2018

Birds on Parade

Monday Aug 20 2018 Harbour Green Park to Vancouver Convention Centre.

Two years in the making, the Vancouver International Festival of Birds parade was billed as "A Great Murmuration" of bird puppets. A great gathering it was, a flock of two hundred visual artists, closet birders and musicians gathered at Vancouver's Harbour Green Park for the spectacle.

Great Gray Owl.

Blue Heron

The assorted flock began their migration by gleaning, pecking, mobbing (mostly dastardly crows and one Raven) flexing and fluffing their feathers. Overhead Glaucous-winged Gulls swooped and glided effortlessly over the parade, a reminder of their avian grace and agility.

Just for a brief moment there seemed to be something special in the air and of course on the ground too.

Whopping Crane

The flock prepares to take off.

Northwestern Crow and Tufted Puffin.

Bald Eagle

Long-billed Curlew.

Black Oystercatcher.

I should have brought my Sibley's, any misidentifications are my fault entirely. Here are some pictures for those who couldn't attend either because of work, distance or those unable to breath in the sooty atmosphere that had descended on Vancouver.

Ladies on a roll.

Made from toilets rolls, string and tape. Swarovski Optiks watch out!

Birders and Twitchers (Birdus Twitchus)

Various species were represented by flag bearers.

A Bald Eagle followed by Anna's Hummingbird.

Baldy the Eagle.

The majority of masks were made with papier mache, some from other household materials, many of the flock had even taken the trouble to learn bird song and calls.

Red-tailed Hawk.

Whopping Crane close-up.

Following the march to the Vancouver Convention Centre for the opening of the Vancouver Bird Festival/Artists for Conservation Festival participants gathered to witness the unveiling of five new Canadian Post stamps featuring birds.