October 17, 2021: 1st Annual Berkeley Bird Festival
Birds on the wing, birds in art, birds in the imagination, birds in history.…
We’re collaborating with the Golden Gate Audubon Society, UC Berkeley and many others to plan and create what we hope will become an annual festival to celebrate the magical presence of birds in our lives. This project recently received financial support from the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. We are planning the inaugural event for Sunday, October 17, 2021. Our team has brainstormed dozens of inspired online programs as well as Covid-safe individual, classroom and community activities.
We envision the Berkeley Bird Festival as a new, exciting, one day “All Berkeley” event with diverse activities possibly including: bird walks throughout the city, sidewalk chalk-drawing of birds in various locations, birdhouse building, planting native plants for bird foods; bird painting/photo exhibitions; poetry, music, art & dance inspired by birds; bird games & face painting for children, making bird drawings and costumes; teaching the “e-bird” app; exhibitions of ancient and contemporary California Indian Bird Art (collaboration with the Hearst Museum on displays about California Indians and Birds with contemporary Indian artists showing Tule duck decoys, bird bone whistles, and feather-work baskets), performance by California Indian “Bird Singers”; exhibition on 10,000 years of environmental changes in the Bay; UC Berkeley MVZ discussing their bird collection/offering tours, demonstrating a “catio”, Workshop Topics: Making Your Backyard a Bird Refuge; Rare Birds of Berkeley; Making Berkeley Safe for Birds; How Birds Build Nests; How Birds Fly; How Diverse Cultures Relate to Birds: Japanese origami, Mexican pinatas, the sky is the limit! (for birds too!)
Stay tuned to the California I CAN Facebook and Instagram accounts and this site for more information. Sign up for the California I CAN mailing list to be the first to know about the events we have planned.
Photo: Golden-Crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia atricapilla at Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley, CA, by Paul Sullivan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.