Commuters passing through the newly renovated Delaware, Lackawanna and Western (DL&W) terminal will be greeted by a sprawling new mural created by UB art professor Joan Linder. “Birds of Buffalo,” spanning nearly 300 feet of the train platform, features 154 species of local birds, drawn from sightings at nearby Tifft Nature Preserve.
“For the mural, I made about 300 drawings in my studio, which were photographed and converted into digital files, printed and high-fired onto porcelain tile,” Linder says. “I chose tile as the main medium to cover platform walls because it resonates with me as the vernacular material of subway and train stations.”
Linder began researching the project two years ago and discovered that long before trains and concrete platforms, Buffalo’s shoreline teemed with wings — warblers, owls, geese and loons passing through marshlands and forest. With “Birds of Buffalo” she honors both the region’s rich ecosystem as well as Roger Tory Peterson, the Jamestown-born naturalist who published the first field guide to birds in 1934.
