One Tiny Bird Put Canada’s Biggest Music Festival Bluesfest on Pause – Sorry, Guys, It Could Be Delayed For Two Weeks
Planners at Ottawa’s upcoming Bluesfest are waiting for approval to move a killdeer nest after it was discovered on the main stage. Moving the bird nest could risk the parents abandoning the eggs.
Source: Tom Pennington / Getty Images
One tiny bird caused big problems
Every July, people from all across Canada travel to Ottawa for Bluesfest, one of the country’s largest music festivals. But this year is special as preparations for the festival are on hold to protect one very special attendee – a mother bird and her nest.
The bird and the four eggs — which is protected by the Canadian government and cannot be moved without federal permission — are nestled on a cobblestone patch that would normally be directly underneath the main stage.
“I have to say this is one of the most challenging problems that we’ve been presented with recently,” Bluesfest executive director Mark Monahan told reporters.
As Carleton University naturalist Michael Runtz explained, a parent killdeer may abandon the eggs if they are moved more than a few feet.
WATCH: work to set up the site for Bluesfest at Lebreton flats halted because of a bird nest on the ground pic.twitter.com/vkgbMPGvlG
— Mike Le Couteur (@mikelecouteur) June 25, 2018
Eggs generally take between 24 and 26 days to hatch and it is unusual for them not to hatch by mid-June. But the organizers of the music festival have no control over the situation.
“Anything that disrupts the schedule has a major effect, so we’re taking it very seriously, we are working with our partners to try and resolve it and we hope to get a resolution within the next 24 hours,” Mark Monahan told reporters a few steps from the nesting site.
The festival has identified spots for a relocated nest about 50 metres away from the main stage area that could isolated and protected.
The nest would be away from the hundreds of thousands of music fans who will stomp through the festival to see the likes of Shawn Mendes, Bryan Adams, Foo Fighters and the Dave Matthews Band, among a host of other acts.
“Somehow, trying to move the eggs from where they are right now — that’s really the critical part for us. There are other locations we can move them to,” Monahan said.
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