Birdability Birders interview series with American Bird Conservancy
Birdability and American Bird Conservancy (ABC) are co-hosting an online interview series entitled Birdability Birders: Conversations about Birding with Access Challenges.
Virginia Rose (left), founder of Birdability, will be the first guest in a new webinar series co-hosted by ABC and Birdability. She and other guests will be interviewed by Birdability Coordinator and occupational therapist Freya McGregor (right). Photo by Wayne Jeansonne.
Through the partnership, ABC and Birdability aim to promote accessibility, inclusion, and representation within the birding community. Disability itself is diverse and intersectional; this series aims to highlight this complexity by featuring the perspectives of birders of different backgrounds who have various disabilities and other health concerns, and who bird in different ways.
Throughout the series, interviewees will discuss:
Their experience with birding,
What everyday life is like living with their disability or other health concern, and
What they need from the birding community and birding locations for them to feel welcome, included, and able to access birding locations.
“We hope that birders (and people who aren’t birders — yet!) with similar access challenges will experience the power of representation, and may learn of other ways they might engage with birding — using similar adaptive birding equipment, for example, or how to advocate in the birding community for what they need,” says series host and Birdability Coordinator Freya McGregor. “These interviews should be a great learning opportunity for nondisabled birders, too, who want to ensure they’re as welcoming and inclusive as possible.”
New interviews will be held live online on the first Tuesday of every month from October 2021 to March 2022. You can read the full press release announcing the series here.
Date: Tuesday October 5, 2021, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Virginia fell off a horse at the age of 14 which resulted in a spinal cord injury. A manual wheelchair user ever since, she began birding 17 years ago and discovered her best self in nature. As a retired high school English teacher, she is passionate about bringing the same joy, empowerment and community she found in birding and nature to others who have mobility or other accessibility challenges, and founded Birdability to do so.
Date: Tuesday November 2nd, 2021, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Totally blind from birth, Jerry Berrier worked for Verizon Communications for 24 years. Since 2003 he worked as an assistive technology specialist, most recently as Director of Assistive Technology for the Perkins School for the Blind. He has been birding by ear since 1972, and he has served as an accessibility consultant with Mass Audubon on more than a dozen All Persons Trails projects. For several years, he has conducted birding by ear workshops and numerous birding programs for adults and children who are blind.
Date: Tuesday December 7th, 2021, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Letícia Soares (she/her) is a broadly trained ornithologist. She is a post-doctoral associate at the Advanced Facility for Avian Research at Western University. Throughout her career, she has done field research with birds from the Amazon forest in Brazil, where she’s originally from, to the Caribbean and the mixed forests in Ontario. She has battled Fibromyalgia for eight years and is currently learning to live with Long Covid, which causes chronic pain, fatigue, brain fog, among other symptoms.
Date: Tuesday January 4th, 2022, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Kari Sasportas (she/they) is an Autistic birder with a lifelong passion for animals and nature. A serious interest in birds began with the sighting of a Pyrrhuloxia in 1997 while serving as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. In 2015, Kari was certified as a Master Naturalist by the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge and avidly contributes to eBird, adding to their life list while furthering citizen science. Kari is a Massachusetts Birdability Captain and advocates for greater understanding and inclusion of neurodivergent individuals in natural spaces and birding communities.
Date: Tuesday February 1st, 2022, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Day Scott (she/her) is a certified California and Wyoming naturalist, wildlife photographer, writer, and environmental educator. Her passion in ornithology has led to amazing opportunities including her work being featured on Discovery and BBC America in addition to teaching a bird photography workshop at The Biggest Week in American Birding festival. Though still navigating through her traumatic brain injury (TBI) recovery and adjusting to a lifestyle with disabilities, she’s discovering her voice for storytelling, an affinity for birds and the bravery to stand out and dare greatly through it all.
Date: Tuesday March 1st, 2022, 6-7.30pm Eastern.
Paul Miller (he/him) has had FSHD since birth, and now uses a power wheelchair to get around. (FSHD – facioscapulohumeral dystrophy – is a slowly progressive condition which results in the weakening of muscles in the face, shoulders and arms.) When he started birding his difficulty using his hands and arms meant that special adaptive birding equipment was needed to support, move and focus his binoculars and scope. This equipment didn’t exist, so he built some himself! He a Birdability Captain and chair of the Accessibility Committee at Sacramento Audubon, and is passionate about sharing his inventions to help others overcome obstacles.
Photo in page header: Wayne Jeansonne. Taken at Lake Creek Trail, Austin, Texas.