Bird Murals in Tacony Creek Park Refreshed by Evan Lovett of VURT Creative

Words and photos by Streets Dept Lead Contributor Eric Dale.

We’re ~~a little~~ very late to the party on this one, y’all, but there are four incredible bird murals in Tacony Creek Park that you should check out when you have a chance! And now that fall strolling weather is just weeks away, there’s perhaps no better excuse to find the time.

Murals depicting a great blue heron, belted kingfisher, white-breasted nuthatch, and peregrine falcon were originally painted by Evan Lovett and Frank Chappell through Evan’s mural nonprofit VURT Creative in 2019. I was on hand to photograph that installation, which you can see in these in-progress shots. These two artists work fast—these four murals took them just four days to complete!

The project was funded by a William Penn Foundation grant that was awarded to Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, or TTF, for community outreach and engagement.

The murals aren’t just for beautification, says Julie Slavet, Executive Director of TTF. They’re intended to “demonstrate to park users that the park they cherish, despite the overwhelming lack of maintenance or presence and extreme neglect, is indeed a special place” deserving of murals.

TTF selected VURT after seeing their Urban Critters series, which depicts wildlife found in Philadelphia [surely, you remember]. After choosing the four birds (which can all be seen in Tacony Creek Park), Evan and Frank got to work painting the murals. (The great blue heron also made it onto Creekforce 1, TTF’s van!)

But sometimes, the work doesn’t end when the mural is complete. Evan estimates that he and/or Frank are called back to touch up the murals two or three times a year due to graffiti.

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Evan says. The murals’ location under the Whitaker Avenue overpass is “kinda the perfect practice ground for novice tags—which mostly is what I’ve had to deal with.”

Evan returned to the park for a refresh most recently in April 2024 as a part of TTF’s third annual Birds of a Feather event, which sees artists, educators, and officials gather to learn about and celebrate the park and its waterway. Rather than repaint the murals in the same way for the umpteenth time, Evan strategically decided to paint the names of the birds along the bottom, where future graffiti is most likely to appear.

“I decided to add the names of the birds in a graffiti style in hopes that it may be respected a bit more and to let people know that this project was done by someone who knows their way around a can,” Evan said. (Evan got his start as a graffiti writer.) Hopefully this subtle visual communication helps reduce the amount of vandalism these commissioned paintings face.

More than 100 species of birds can be found along Tacony Creek. For more information, check out TTF’s Bird Guide.

And for a little bonus if you visit these murals in person, peek behind the nuthatch—there’s an awesome piece by Sea Of Doom and SEXES! This was also painted during the 2024 Birds of a Feather event.