The Lost Bird Project, a documentary film about five bird species driven to extinction in modern times and sculptor Todd McGrain’s project to memorialize them, will be airing on Earth Day, April 22, 2013. The film will be public television stations across so check your local listings for exact dates and times.
The film follows McGrain and his brother-in-law, Andy, from the tropical swamps of Florida to Martha’s Vineyard to the rocky coasts of Newfoundland over a period of two years as they search for the locations where these birds were last seen in the wild, talk to park rangers, speak at town meetings and battle bureaucracy in their effort to gather support for the project.
McGrain’s aim was to place the sculptures in places where the birds were once common and are now so starkly absent.
The memorials now stand in the places where the birds once s
ocialized, courted and fed their young — a testament to what we have lost…and a reminder to preserve what we have left
The film is a moving elegy to five extinct North American birds — the Passenger Pigeon (my favorite), the Heath Hen, the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck and the Great Auk — and a thoughtful, sometimes humorous look at the artist and his mission.
The Great Auk memorial is located on the island of Fogo, in Newfoundland.
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