The Rain Festival

Before the rain arrives, the local birds of the Gold Coast already know. Their sudden playfulness turns the sky and streets into a tiny carnival.

Rain festival comes from a long-held observation: birds seem to sense rain before we do. The birds in this comic are familiar local visitors on the Gold Coast—ones I see often, already lively and playful long before we realise rain is coming.

In the hours before a shower, they become louder, quicker, and more restless, darting here and there as though a celebration is about to begin. Maybe it is the beauty of the Gold Coast that keeps them so excited: the open sky, the waterways, the trees, and the changing weather. This comic imagines that secret anticipation as a festival only the birds can see.