'Chookie Birdies'

When traveling, some helpful advice is to try to remember to look down, as well as up. The latter is true if one should find oneself in the Garnethill area, adjacent to Cowgaddens, just east of Glasgow's city center. Perched high up on a number of street lights, sit pairs of what the locals refer to as 'Chookie Birdies', or chunky birds.

These, more than a hundred aluminium avian creations, are the work of multi-award-winning Scottish artist Shona Kirkloch. In 1993, she was commissioned by the Glasgow Development Agency and the Strathclyde Regional Council. She also worked with a team of architects from Page & Park to create an artistic scheme: "which avoids both the clichés of mock Victoriana and the dullness of modern uniformity."

Ms. Kirkloch graduated from the nearby and prestigious Glasgow School of Art. She has multiple other works spread throughout Scotland, as well as England, including a flock of seagulls that surround the statue of English comic Eric Morecambe, (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/eric-morecambe-statue). She even has several works aboard Royal Caribbean cruise liners.