Six feathered hopefuls are vying to be elected Vancouver’s official City Bird and they need your votes.
Bird enthusiasts gathered in Stanley Park Sunday morning to choose their favourite among six birds that live in Vancouver all year round.
It’s all part of an educational competition geared towards raising awareness about the importance of birds in our ecosystem. The competition is part of Bird Week, which runs from May 3 to 10.
Bird Week will kick off with an official proclamation and walk on Beach Avenue.
Throughout the week, there will be artists’ workshops and art exhibits at the Roundhouse and Hillcrest community centres, closing with a series of walks in Vancouver parks to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day.
The winner of the City Bird competition will be featured on buttons during next year’s Bird Week. Vancouver residents can vote online for their favourite bird until May 3.
Each bird has taken to social media to promote themselves using the hashtag #vancitybird on Twitter.
Meet the birds:
Anna’s Hummingbird
Anna’s Hummingbirds are tiny, but highly showy, Vancouver birds. They’re bright and colourful, fearless around humans, and the males will swoop up 130 feet in the air and then dive to the ground to woo the ladies.
Black-Capped Chickadee
The cute Black-Capped Chickadee is a can-do bird who loves to explore and is always the first to find a feeder in the area. It’s a social, popular bird who lives in the forest, hides food to eat later, and has a well-known whistled song.
Pileated Woodpecker
The stately Pileated Woodpecker is the largest of the City Bird candidates, and lives exclusively in mature forests. The holes it pecks provide homes and nests for many other bird species.
GALLERY: Vancouver’s City Bird nominees
Varied Thrush
Though brightly coloured, the Varied Thrush is a shy bird whose song is often described as a “sad referee’s whistle.” It spends the winter at sea level, then heads up mountains to breed in spring.
Northern Flicker
The Northern Flicker is at home in both forest and urban environments, eating and living easily in both, and is unafraid to squawk at its human neighbours. A cousin of the Pileated Woodpecker, the Flicker also pecks holes that other species use to survive.
Pacific Wren
In 2010, Pacific Wrens were split off as their own species from the Winter Wren family. The brown Pacific Wren is a shy and solitary bird, hiding in its forest habitat and avoiding people. However, despite its tiny size, its voice is enormously powerful.
Last year’s official elected City Bird was the Northwestern Crow.
Comments