In Ottawa they will need to delay the opening of the Bluesfest due to the small Tern that has decided to build a nest where they are going to set up the main stage...
OTTAWA — A small plover and her egg-laden nest are holding hostage the national capital’s biggest music festival.
Workers came across the killdeer and its nest just as they were preparing to set up one of the main stages at Ottawa’s 11-day Bluesfest event, which takes place in front of the Canadian War Museum.
The bird and the four eggs — which enjoy protected status in Canada — are nestled on a cobblestone patch that would normally be directly underneath the main stage.
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.
If the eggs don’t hatch by end of day, the festival’s executive director says setup work on the stages will be thrown off and will have to be rejigged to make sure everything is ready for the festival’s scheduled start July 5.
“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.