[Nebraska-Senior-Blind] From our April Meeting- Birding with Vision Loss - the transcript and links to Birding resources!

[robertleslienewman at gmail.com]

ACCESSIBLE BIRDING; what is it and how to go about it

 

Accessible birding was the topic during the April meeting of the NFB of
Nebraska Senior Division; via Zoom. First we listened to a recording
"Birding With Vision Loss," created by the Hadley Presents Podcasts.
Secondly participants on the call shared their experiences and/or asked
questions.

 

Find below: 

*#1 a live link to listen to the actual podcast "Birding with Vision Loss;"
you must have access to the Internet. 

*#2 The written out text of the interview "Birding with Vision Loss;"
provided by Hadley. 

*#3 Some mnemonics for learning bird sounds.

*#4 Apps and links to the resources mentioned during the podcast; Internet
is needed. 

 

*#1 The Link to listen to the podcast:

 

 
<https://click.email.hadley.edu/?qs=4b97c57838084214cc441f333ad97d4728552129
22b036b570a09b0a6410544d9fdaf95ed8389834b933fecea44d732fa80d85133a8fd13c>
Listen Now

 

*#2 The transcript of the podcast provided by Hadley:

 

Birding with Vision Loss

Presented by Ricky Enger

 


Ricky Enger: Welcome to Hadley Presents. I'm your host, Ricky Enger,
inviting you to sit back, relax, and enjoy a conversation with the experts.
In this episode, founder of Access Birding, Freya McGregor, joins us to
discuss enjoying this hobby with blindness or low vision. Welcome to the
show, Freya.

Freya McGregor:      Thanks so much. It's great to be here.

Ricky Enger: It's really good to have you. This has been an often-requested
topic, and it's not quite spring here yet, but I do still occasionally hear
birds chirping. It's always such a lovely sound and I really look forward to
learning a bit more about this hobby, because I'll confess, I don't know a
lot. I have a lot of questions, but before we get into those, why don't you
just take a moment to tell us a bit about yourself, who you are and what you
do?

Freya McGregor:      Sure. I am an occupational therapist. My background is
in blindness and low vision services back home in Australia. I fell in love
with an American soldier, and so I've lived in the US for the last seven
years. As a disabled birder myself and an occupational therapist, I'm really
interested in helping to increase the accessibility of birding spaces, like
trails and parks and observation buildings and things like that, and birding
programs. And helping to create a more welcoming and inclusive birding
community so that more disabled birders can get out and be part of this
lovely community and enjoy this really cool hobby.

I run a consulting business, Access Birding, working with nature
organizations to increase access and inclusion for disabled birders. And I
am a research associate at Virginia Tech working on projects related to
access, inclusion, disability birding and using birding as a therapeutic
tool, which is really cool.

I'm working on a book right now that will be published by Princeton
University Press in a couple of years about accessible birding locations all
over the US. So that's a pretty gigantic project. I'm trying to visit all
the places that I include because a big barrier to lots of disabled birders
is having access to the information that they need to determine if a trail
or a car birding location is one that would be accessible to them. So, I'm
trying to visit all these places, which makes for lots of awesome birding
travel, but it's still a pretty monster project.

Ricky Enger: Right. I love that you keep mentioning access and inclusion
because it is incredibly important. I think when people imagine birding,
they have this idea of what it is, that's probably not accurate, because
I've even heard people call this bird watching before, and so immediately
I'm thinking as a person who's blind myself, I'm like, eh, that's probably
not for me. And so, for somebody who doesn't have much vision, surely
there's more to birding than just looking at pretty creatures. Can you talk
a little about maybe just a better way to look at this that's more
inclusive?

Freya McGregor:      Absolutely. I'm actually really passionate about this.
In the birding community, there has historically been a bit of a distinction
between, quote, bird watching and birding. Birding was a new sort of term.
Some folks really enjoy keeping a life list, which is a list of how many
birds you've seen or heard in your whole life. And many people keep lists.
They might have a yard list of all the birds that have shown up in their
backyard, or people keep checklists for what they've seen or heard just on a
particular trail today.

There was this difference between birding, which was sort of this listing,
almost competitive kind of thing. And bird watching was seen as a sort of
more relaxed, casual feeding birds in your backyard and just not really
worrying too much about it. But loads and loads of people bird by ear. Most
sighted birders bird by ear to some extent.

Different birds make different sounds and, if you learn the sounds, you can
tell what bird is making which sound. Some species even look exactly the
same, like really almost impossible to visually identify which is which. But
the sounds they make, that's the thing that tells you which one it is.

Birding by ear is completely standard. It's not an extra thing. It's just
part of learning how to identify birds. I'm really passionate about
redefining birding as the act of enjoying wild birds. Because some people
might not think they could be a bird watcher, but you can totally be a bird
enjoyer.

 

Ricky Enger: Right. I guess if somebody's thinking about this and they like
the sounds of birds, but don't know which bird is which, and have no idea
how to tell the difference between all these birds. Or don't even know how
to get started with this. It sounds cool, but where do I even go? Are there
just some beginner resources, whether it's a book, a website, or somewhere
that people can start diving in, in a way that's not super intimidating?

Freya McGregor:      Yeah, absolutely. So, the recommendation is to get
familiar with the birds that are local to you in your backyard, or that hang
around in your neighborhood. When you get familiar with those birds, then
you start noticing a difference. When you go to a different park or you go
to a lake or the beach or the mountains, you'll start. Different birds live
in different habitats and different birds live in different parts of the
country and the world.

And because you are familiar with the ones close by, you'll tell really
quickly when there's a difference. There are lots of different tools.
There's a really great app that's free. (You can get this app on the Apple
App Store.) The Cornell Lab of Ornithology created it, which is at Cornell
University in upstate New York, a really big bird research institution. This
app is called Merlin Bird ID, Merlin like the wizard. (It is accessible via
VoiceOver.) But in fact, it's Merlin like a falcon, which is a kind of
raptor, like a small hawk.

Merlin Bird ID has photos of birds and descriptions and range maps. There'll
be a text description of the bird's behavior. It often helps if you can see
what they're up to or if someone's describing to you what the bird's doing
as well as colors and size and shape and things like that.

The thing that's really cool about Merlin is it also has sounds that the
birds make. Once you're in a species, like say, a northern cardinal, a
really common bird in the Eastern US in lots of people's backyards, you can
navigate to the sound bite of the northern cardinal kind of listing, and
it'll have a series of recorded calls, because some birds make quite a few
noises and you can play them and listen.

Now, good birding ethics says it's not really good to play bird sounds
really loudly outside because you can distract birds from what they're
doing, which is usually resting, or trying to find food, or nesting in the
spring and summer. And we don't want to distract them. They might think that
we're an intruder and they come to just defend their territory. And we don't
want to do that because they've got stuff to do.

If you play a sound outside, turn your volume down a bit. Hold your phone
close to your ear or something. But inside, go wild. And there's also a
really awesome feature that's just come out in the last few months on
Merlin, which is a sound ID feature. You start using the app, you start
recording the sounds around you and it recognizes what birds are calling,
and it tells you what they are, which is really a cool way to confirm
something that you suspected. Like, I think that's a pine warbler, but let
me just check. Merlin can tell you. It doesn't always get it all right.
There're frogs that sound like birds, and squirrels make all kinds of
noises, and you can go chasing squirrels. And it turns out it's a squirrel,
not a bird.

Merlin only does bird sounds at the moment. So, there might be sounds,
you're like, why doesn't it tell me what this is? It doesn't recognize it
yet. It doesn't have all of the biodiversity there. But that's a really cool
tool. Another fun little thing, and this is something you can just Google,
there's lots of different mnemonics for learning bird sounds.

A mnemonic is like a rhyme or just a funny little phrase that helps you
remember something else. So, there's these mnemonics for different bird
sounds. They say Carolina wrens are these little feisty birds, they're in
the Eastern US. They're often in backyards. They don't really mind humans.
They make a lot of noise. That's a really good call to learn if you're in
the Eastern US. They're loud and they're super feisty and they also make a
few different calls. But one of them, they say that the wren says, "tea
kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle."

Ricky Enger: Oh, right.

Freya McGregor:      Sometimes you have to use a bit of imagination, but
that's what they say. And if you can learn that little memory trick, that
mnemonic, then when you hear the bird, you might be like, oh, hey, that's
tea kettle. That's the Caroline wren. So, there's a whole stack of different
mnemonics. I wouldn't Google it and try and learn them all off the bat
because that's kind of overwhelming.

Ricky Enger: There's a lot, I'm sure.

Freya McGregor:      But yeah, that's fun. And I just learned a new one
recently. Tufted titmice, another really common backyard bird in a lot of
the Eastern US, is also small, and makes a lot of noises. And I hadn't
realized that a sound that I often hear in my neighborhood was a tufted
titmouse, until I got out Merlin bird ID and it said that was a tufted
titmice. I thought, oh gosh. Right. Someone just two days later happened to
tell me, oh yeah, tufted titmice say, "Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter."

Ricky Enger: Oh wow.

Freya McGregor:      That's exactly the sound I heard. There's always more
to learn about birds, and that's something that makes it a really cool
hobby. You can take it as far as you want, or not. You can just enjoy them
for the sake of enjoying them, not worry about what they're called because
they don't care what you call them. So, make up your own name.

Ricky Enger: That's a really great point because I think, at least for
myself, when I think about birding, it really does seem intimidating,
especially when I think about people I have known who do this. They have the
binoculars and the camera and they have this field guide and this logbook so
they can jot down what they found. And it's like this whole thing of, wow,
it is a process and I better get out there and do it right if I'm going to
do it at all. But that doesn't seem to be so accurate from what you've
described so far.

With that said, I'm wondering if there is equipment or anything that you
would recommend if somebody is birding. Are there things that can help,
either with recording bird sounds, or taking things down? Or just something
that might make it a little bit easier if you had any particular equipment?

Freya McGregor:      Sure. Before I dive into the equipment, I just want to
encourage you that because there are so many different ways to enjoy wild
birds, none of them are more or less better than the other. And so, if you
want to just go out and listen and it doesn't bother you that you don't know
what the birds are called, I mean that's fine. Do that.

You don't have to have all the gear out. You don't have to know all the
birds' names. You don't have to travel interstate or overseas. You just do
whatever you want. Birds are there and they're awesome and you can enjoy
them however you like. So please don't feel intimidated. We'd rather have
you enjoy birds however you want than feel like you can't be part of this
hobby.

Equipment. Yeah. A lot of folks use binoculars because they magnify the
birds. You can see the bird in more detail. When you're trying to identify
birds visually, some birds have little, they're called field marks, like
different colors in different spots. Maybe their beak is a little bit
different shaped. Binoculars make everything look a bit bigger. So, they're
a helpful tool. Absolutely. But they're just a tool. They're not required.

Cameras. Yeah, sure. Some people really enjoy bird photography. Again, not
required. Just fun if that's a thing you want to do. I know some folks with
low vision really like being able to take photos of birds, because they can
come home and put the photos on their computer and zoom in and really see
more detail about the bird than they could when they were out in the field.
For them, that's really exciting and something they really like to do. I
mean, I have a camera, but that's because I enjoy photography. I don't take
it out all the time, because sometimes I don't want to lug this giant heavy
object around.

There's lots of folks who really enjoy recording bird sounds and there's
lots of different microphones that could be used out in the field. I happen
to work for a radio show and podcast about birds and conservation as well
and I use my phone. We have this thing called audio postcards. If I'm
hearing a bird making consistent noise and there's not too much background
noise, like a big road nearby and trucks roaring up and down, I use the
voice recorder, the voice memo app on my phone. I just start recording right
there. These days phone microphones are pretty great. And the show, Talkin'
Birds, by the way, there's a plug. It's a half an hour radio show. It's
released as a podcast. Ray Brown's the host, and he's been doing this for a
long time. He's been in radio longer than I've possibly been alive.

That's actually a fun tool, because he has a really great way of sharing
information about birds that's interesting to people who have been doing it
for a while, as well as not being too overwhelming or intimidating for new
birders. So, Talkin' Birds, there's no g. Anyhow, you might hear my voice if
you listen, because I send in audio postcards quite often just using my
phone. I'll talk about what the bird's doing and where I am.

There's this really amazing database called Xeno Canto;
https://xeno-canto.org/. It's X-E-N-O C-A-N-T-O. And I'm not sure if it's
for all kinds of nature sounds or if it's just for birds, but you can upload
audio recordings there and make them publicly available. The other place,
and this is a tool too, eBird, is this massive database. Again, the Cornel
Lab of Ornithology runs it, and that's where people can submit checklists of
birds they've seen or heard in a particular location on a day. You can
upload photos and audio there as well, and so there's this incredibly
extensive library of audio recordings that anyone can access through
eBird.org and hear all the different sounds that birds make.

That can get a bit overwhelming. That's why I'd use the app instead because
they've selected the best quality audio. But it's kind of fun because a lot
of folks enjoy that sort of citizen science. You're part of these incredible
research projects just by sharing data about what birds are around you and
the audio and stuff. So that's a fun thing too.

Ricky Enger: Oh, for sure. I think our show notes are going to be packed
full of these resources, which is amazing. It's great to know that there is
so much out there, and just in your describing this, I don't think anyone
should feel limited because there are so many different ways to enjoy birds,
record them, do whatever. Or just like to listen and that's as far as I want
to take it. So that's awesome.

For a lot of people, they live in an urban setting. Maybe they're in an
apartment complex and there's not really a backyard or something nearby, but
they still want to be able to enjoy this. Travel might actually be a little
bit difficult. But I mean, I feel like birds are everywhere. So are there
ways that people, regardless of where they happen to be, can still step
outside, and enjoy birding?

Freya McGregor:      Absolutely. That's one of the cool things about birds,
they're everywhere. Everywhere. Very much in urban settings. There's a
species of bird called a peregrine falcon, and unusually it's found on every
continent on the planet except Antarctica. There are peregrine falcons back
home in Australia, and there're peregrine falcons in the US. They became
really endangered in the 1970s, I think, when DDT was this pesticide that
was used in a lot of farming. It turned out that it would get in the food
chain. So, a peregrine falcon eats lots of prey, lots of smaller birds and
other things.

This pesticide, the kind of toxic part of it, would get in the food chain
and just builds up and builds up. By the time a falcon is eating it, they're
consuming way high quantities. And peregrine falcons, bald eagles, I think
American white pelicans and osprey, they're all big birds that ate lots of
smaller things. It turned out DDT, when they laid eggs, it made the
eggshells really thin, and the parents completely unknowingly would crack
the eggshells just by sitting on them in the nest. It doesn't take very long
when you have a bunch of birds who aren't having successful babies, because
their eggshells are being cracked, the babies aren't hatching. All these
birds became really endangered, and it was really, really bad. Then they
banned DDT, and all these birds have made a huge comeback, which is really,
really cool. 

Peregrine falcons, so they're special for that reason, but they really like
nesting on cliffs where there's a straight down, like this big epic cliff.
It turns out that skyscrapers sort of pass as cliffs because they're really
tall and straight up and down. In big cities, like New York and Chicago they
make sort of canyons. There're so many skyscrapers in downtown that there's
almost a canyon where the street is. So, there's all these places, these
big, big cities where there are peregrine falcons nesting up high on these
tall buildings. 

Even in Melbourne, where I'm from back in Australia, there's peregrine
falcons on actually a few of the downtown buildings and they have nest cams.
They have a camera set up to watch the nest. There's one in Boston, too, a
nest cam on some peregrine falcons. That's a really fun way to enjoy birds
from your computer because you can just open the YouTube streaming and you
can see what's going on. And because these birds are raptors, they have to
kind of baby their babies for quite a while. So, you get weeks of watching
the little nestlings grow up and get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger
before they kind of fledge and graduate out into the world. It also turns
out, particularly in New York so I hear, there are so many pigeons.

Ricky Enger: Oh, right.

Freya McGregor:      They're super easy prey. Pigeons are a common urban
bird all over the world, and peregrine falcons really like eating them. All
of this to say that there are birds absolutely everywhere, even in places
that you wouldn't necessarily think.

If there's a local park or green space nearby, there's probably going to be
more and different birds in that more natural space, especially if there's
water. Because birds need plants, because that's where insects are, and
that's food for a lot of bird species. So, parks are really great and urban
parks. But even in really dense downtown areas, there are birds. Tune in,
listen, and look up if you can, and you never know what you'll run into.

Ricky Enger: That's very cool. We've talked a lot about doing this sort of
on your own as a solitary thing, which is perfectly fine. You're not having
to organize something with somebody else. But I am wondering if there are
some benefits to enjoying this as part of a group, and how do people
actually go about finding somebody, or a group of people, who are into this
hobby as well?

Freya McGregor:      Yeah, absolutely. A really cool thing in the US is the
National Audubon Society, which is a really big bird and conservation
organization. There are more than 400 Audubon chapters all over the US with
different Audubon chapters and different sizes. Very often, they are running
bird walks, bird outings, birding events, workshops, online presentations
advertised on social media or on their website or in their newsletter.

Beginners are almost always very, very welcomed. I've never seen something
that said beginners are not welcomed. Sometimes they'll have a beginner bird
walk specifically to start folks out. They won't get too carried away and
get too overwhelming with information, because there is so much to learn
about birds. But yeah, Audubon societies and Audubon chapters. There's lots
of bird clubs as well, local bird clubs. Nature centers and state parks
often have programs, education, or interpretive programs, which are about
birds or going out on a bird hike or something. 

There're loads of ways to get involved in the in-person birding community.
And it's really fun. You don't have to. Plenty of people would rather go
birding on their own or just with one friend, or a couple of friends, or
whatever. But yeah, going on organized bird outings is really fun. I would
encourage you. I've done a lot of work to help educate non-disabled members
of the birding community about how to be more welcoming and inclusive of
folks who might have different access challenges.

I would encourage you, if your blind or halfway visioned and you really want
to go out on a bird outing, I'm sure it's not required at all, but it might
be helpful to email ahead of time and see if you can get in touch with the
outing leader and just let them know that you're coming, and there's nothing
that they have to worry about. But just a heads-up, if they could help point
out more birds that are making sounds than just the ones that you can see,
that might help the outing leader make the event more enjoyable for you.

Ricky Enger: Excellent. I think if you're telling a group ahead of time or a
leader ahead of time, "Hey, I'm going to be here," it will at least give
them an opportunity to think about birding in a way that maybe they don't
all the time already. It could be beneficial for both of you. Maybe they
think, "This is really visual for me, and of course I do hear birds, but I
don't pay attention to it as much as I could." Maybe, just having that as a
part of the group and everyone is focused on listening as well as looking. I
think it's a way that can bring people together and everybody benefits.

Freya McGregor:      Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes for sighted birders,
birding by ear feels like an advanced skill, they might know a few calls.
I'm sort of new in this category. I'm very proud that I'm slowly getting
more competent at identifying different birds by ear, but it's not something
that's come as easy to me as identifying them visually.

So, lots and lots of birders want to improve their birding by ear skills for
exactly the reasons that I just shared. There'll often be outings that are
organized, workshops that are focusing on birding by ear. And so especially
if you said, "Hey, it'd be really great if you can make sure to try and
point out the calls as much for me." The outing leader might really
appreciate that opportunity to stretch their brain out a bit and stretch
everybody else's brain out a bit too. For sure. Yeah.

Ricky Enger: Very cool. Well, this has turned out to be a far less
intimidating and far more approachable hobby than I ever imagined, which is
really, really great. I know that the audience is going to enjoy this as
well. We have some people who are birding already, and some who are very
curious about it and just weren't quite sure where to begin. So, this has
been really informative. Is there anything that we didn't cover, or maybe
just a bit of advice that you would leave people with as we wrap up?

Freya McGregor:      Yeah. Backyard birding is a whole thing and feeding
birds. Lots and lots of people, they might not think that they're a birder,
but a lot of people feed birds in their backyard, and that's awesome and a
great way to tune into the birds in your local area.

But yeah, there isn't a wrong way to do this. So please go out. We know
there are so many therapeutic benefits to birding for our health and
wellbeing. Listening to bird sounds can help reduce stress and a whole lot
of other things. So, if you can, just get outside. Or if getting outside's
hard, tuning into a nest cam or a feeder cam. There's lots and lots of them
on the internet that you'll probably be able to hear some awesome sounds.
And yeah, enjoy birds. It's so fun.

Ricky Enger: Love it. Thank you so much, and I can definitely hear the
passion in your voice as you talk about this, which is always good. It's
great to have someone who knows a lot about a subject and is clearly just
hoping to share that with other people. So, thank you so much for taking a
bit of your time and just sharing your expertise and your passion with us.

Freya McGregor:      You're welcome.

 

Ricky Enger: Got something to say? Share your thoughts about this episode of
Hadley Presents or make suggestions for future episodes. We'd love to hear
from you. Send us an email at podcast at hadley.edu <mailto:podcast at hadley.edu>
. That's p-o-d-c-a-s-t at hadley.edu <mailto:p-o-d-c-a-s-t at hadley.edu> . Or
leave us a message at 8-4-7 7-8-4 2-8-7-0. Thanks for listening.

 

*#2: Some mnemonics for learning bird sounds; got these via the Internet:

 

-American Crow- "Caw-caw-caw"

-Blue Jay- "Jay- jay- jay"

-American Goldfinch- (while flying, in an up-and-down dipping song)
"po-ta-to-chip"

-Great Horned Owl- "Who's Awake? ...

*	Carolina Chickadee- "chk-a-dee-dee-dee"

-Carolina Wren (loud and clear)"tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle!" or
"cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger!"

-White-breasted Nuthatch - "Yank yank yank" (sung through your nose) 

-Downy Woodpecker - "peeeeeeek" descending horse whinny 

-Barred Owl - "Who cooks for you?

-Northern Cardinal - (Star Wars light saber) 

-American Goldfinch - "Potato chip. Potato chip." (dips in flight.)

-indigo bunting's song goes like this: sweet, sweet, chew, chew, see-it,
see-it or like this: Fire, fire! Where, where? Here, Here! Put-it-out,
put-it-out!

-Northern Mockingbird: The song is a long series of phrases, with each
phrase usually repeated three times or more; the songs can go on for 20
seconds or more.

-Nashville Warbler's song- birders swear by the mnemonic: "pizza-pizza-pizza
eat-eat-eat-eat," which is more memorable and accurately captures the
Nashville Warbler's song, at least the regional variant sung in the Trilakes
area of the Adirondacks.

-Golden-winged Warbler - appears to say, "Audubon"

 

*#3: Apps and Websites:

 

-Merlin Bird ID; a free app which can be downloaded on either the App Store
for Apple and from the Play Store for Android 

 

-Database called Xeno Canto; https://xeno-canto.org/

 

-Database called eBird; https://ebird.org

 

 <https://www.talkinbirds.com/> Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds:

 

Respectfully yours,

Robert Leslie Newman

NFBN Senior Division, President 

 

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