It's World Migratory Bird Day!

It's migration season! All around the world, creatures large and small are on the move. In truth, migration isn't just "a spring thing" or "a fall thing," because the diversity of migration strategies is as broad as the diversity of animals that migrate! Short distance, long distance, elevational... North to south, east to west. Some ocean creatures even migrate vertically, living at different depths of the sea at different times of year.

Personally, I love the spring migration of birds. After a long, gray winter, it's so fun to suddenly see bright flashes of color in the landscape. Today a Baltimore oriole came through my yard for the first time, and yesterday I saw yellow warblers and common yellowthroats.

This year migration seems extra-delightful. It's a reminder that even if human movements are restricted at the moment, the rest of the natural world is going about business as usual.

In a typical year, today is a day that would see hundreds of events across the globe celebrating World Migratory Bird Day! Back in January, when I revealed the poster art I created, none of us knew that we'd be gathering digitally, but the folks at WMBD have gone all out to bring us a virtual festival! All day long they'll be streaming programming on Facebook!

I put together a couple of short videos that they'll be sharing on their social media channels today, but you can get a first peek at this one right now! In it I share a look at how I created the art for the poster, and a short demonstration of the reduction linocut process.