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Birding is a quiet activity, but when you're out there, it's anything but silent. Birds call, leaves rustle, and sometimes laughter and community fill the air, too.
Nature has always been a healing space for me, but I haven't always seen myself fully represented there. That's why this moment, this walk with Everybody Birding Club, felt so important.
I spoke with founder Lindsay Slack and several participants to understand what draws them to this inclusive birding community. I discovered a group committed to breaking down barriers and creating welcoming outdoor spaces for everyone.
"I wanted to create a welcoming space where anyone and everyone could come together and enjoy birds," Slack said. "The BIPOC community, LGBTQIA+ community, also considering people who are blind, people who are deaf, all of those things. Plus, being a brown person who loves the outdoors, I love to camp, I love to go to birding activities, and a lot of times I am the only brown person there or one of the very few brown people there."
First-time birder Nyla Mannion appreciated this approach. "I do not know a lot about birds, and I mean I've learned a lot just in the few minutes that I've been here," she said. "Whenever I do go out to a park and it's not with this group, I'm not seeing as many people who look like me... it wasn't like a here's a list of things to buy or here's the list of things to bring, it was like bring yourself."
For longtime outdoorsman Willie Franklin, this wasn't just another bird outing. It was part of a mission rooted in joy, history, and responsibility.
"Every time I see a person of color outside enjoying the great outdoors and feeding their soul via nature, it's almost an intoxicating joy that I try to manage so my face doesn't explode," Franklin said. "Because we were instructed, oh, black folks don't do that. So now, in my adulthood, I feel just charged and responsible for changing that narrative, getting out, being my true self, and encouraging others to do the same."
Holistic physician Kristen Johnson reflected on the healing power of being outdoors: "I'm a lifestyle medicine doctor, and so it's really important to me, as nature is medicine, to be outside. And often, I'm not necessarily welcomed in a lot of spaces or I feel uncomfortable in some spaces where certain comments have been made about me not being a normal person of color because I like being outside."
There's medicine in the trees, in the birdsong, and in the walking. And that truth shows up in every corner of this community.
Slack told me about her Spark Bird, which first got her hooked. "My spark bird was the tufted titmouse, and every time I see it at my bird feeders, my heart melts a little bit. I'm like, oh, hey there you are. Like it's my bird."
Mine is the American Robin. They always seem to find me, hopping towards me on sidewalks, showing up right when I need a reminder to stay grounded.
Today's outing felt so supportive, I knew that this was a space for all of us.
"I would hope that in the future someone can just put something up on one of the social media platforms and say, hey, I'm going to go birding here tomorrow, and hopefully people will show up," Slack said.
Every time I join this group, I feel more grounded, more connected to nature, and part of a community that understands the healing power of the outdoors.
We Outside is produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO. It's made possible with support from Five Rivers MetroParks.
