Bird chalk art at the Berkeley Bird Festival

By Ilana DeBare

The sidewalks of U.C. Berkeley blossomed with colorful bird life on Sunday — a chalk art aviary that was part of the first-ever Berkeley Bird Festival.

Golden Gate Bird Alliance invited artists and nature sketchers, adults and kids, casual doodlers and “me? I can’t draw!” passersby to join in creating chalk art images of birds on two campus plazas, in front of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Li Ka Shing Center. The results were fantastic. But the process was equally fantastic—watching art emerge, bit by bit, smudge by smudge, out of bland concrete walkways.

Many thanks to all the artists who participated! And to our festival co-sponsor, the California Institute for Community, Art, & Nature, and to the U.C. Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund, which supported the Festival. We’ll give a broader report on the Festival in an upcoming blog post, but for now here’s a gallery of chalk art images.


Peregrine Falcon chalk art
GGBA’s own Clay Anderson kicked the chalk art program off with a magnificent Peregrine Falcon, inspired by the falcon pair that nest on the UC Campanile.
Red-tailed Hawk chalk art
Red-tailed Hawk with a message: Don’t use rodenticides!
Bufflehead chalk art
Bufflehead by GGBA board member Amy Chong. She managed to capture its iridescence!
Chalk art parrot
A “wild parrot of Telegraph Hill”
Peregrine Falcon chalk art
Peregrine Falcons were a popular subject!
Grant Yang’s finished Lazuli Bunting
Woodpecker chalk art
An Ivory-billed Woodpecker -— extinct in nature but alive on the UC sidewalk — by Brenda Helm
Nukupuu chalk art
Nukupu’u, a Hawaiian honeycreeper that is most likely extinct, by Michael Helm
Chalk art bird and tree
This young artist drew habitat as well as a bird
Bonaparte's Gull chalk art
Bonaparte’s Gull chalk art
Peacock chalk art
A resplendent peacock
Chal kart peacock
Peacock!
Woodpecker chalk art
Pileated Woodpecker and chicks
Thunderbirdchalk art
Native American-style Thunderbird
Evolution chalk art
This artist depicted the evolution of birds from other dinosaurs
Hummingbird chalk art
A much larger-than-life hummingbird
Painted Bunting chalk art
Painted Bunting
Chalk artists at UC Berkeley
Artists spread out, making the whole walkway their canvas
Chalk art bluebirds
The author, one of those “me? I can’t draw” people, with her Western Bluebirds
Chalk art and Clay Anderson
At the end of the day, time to clean up. Thank you, Clay and all the participants! There were many more beautiful chalk birds than we could fit in this blog post.

Photos By Ilana DeBare and Ryan Nakano.