Hello and welcome to the American Birding podcast from the American Birding Association.

I am your host, Nate Swick.

We are in a period of our history, especially American history, where we are removing a lot of statues to less than celebratory parts of our

national past. So how about some good statue news? Would you want to hear some good statue news?

Because I've got some of that for you. Regular listeners to the podcast might remember way back

more than a year ago when I talked a couple times about a plan in Portland, Maine to raise

money to build a statue for the Great Black Hawk that took up residents at Dearing Oaks

Park in Portland. And the winter of 2018, 2019, it became one of the most storied rare birds

ever to grace the ABA area with its presence.

If you are not familiar with the story, the short version, it was a first ABA area record,

first recorded in Texas, and then several months later it turned up in Maine.

I was determined to be the same individual bird stuck around for a long time,

before, sadly, eventually succumbing to the cold weather it was an extraordinary if a little bittersweet story but that

bird made a ton of people happy so friends of dearing oaks park decided to make a statue in its honor

and that statue was finally dedicated last week and And let me say, it is very cool.

The artist, David Smus, I hope I get that right. Sorry, David. He's a main sculptor. He did

phenomenal work. I went to his website and saw some of his other stuff. He's actually a really

impressive artisan. He's done a lot of cool bird

and wildlife work. I totally see why they went with him. So let me describe this piece to you

if you haven't seen the photos. It is a thin stone pedestal, about eight to ten feet high. The bird

is sitting on top of it. It's life-sized. Its wings are out.

Its tail is flared.

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