Connecting Conservation Dots--Aldo Leopold to Marvin Gaye to Michael Jackson

Being one of the few B.O.C. (Birders of Color) out there, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to expose non-traditional  audiences to the joys of birding and being out in nature. I get the chance here and there but hardly ever the extended  time and concentrated  attention I’d like to get my point across.  My summer gig gives me the perfect opportunity to do just that. A few years ago, I signed on with South Carolina State University and the USDA Forest Service at  Savannah River to teach wildlife ecology to students in a an environmental sciences field station. Clemson has a formal partnership with the station and I've pretty much appointed myself as the emissary between the two. Call it a mission born of my desire to see Land Grant Mission reach beyond the traditional audiences. And so I go south to Aiken, home (sort of) for me. Most of the students are juniors and senior undergraduates  and come primarily from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).  The mission of the field station, run by my good friend Dr. Denise Simmons, is to expose a traditionally under-served audience to environmental issues ranging from remediation to soil science and in my class, wildlife conservation ecology. Although relatively  few of the students are in majors I would consider “environmental sciences, they are at least in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology , Engineering, Math) disciplines. It is a palette I can paint on.  The goal is environmental and conservation literacy. And so for  four weeks in June, I finally have the forum to focus a small group of folks in to the necessity of nature and why it is especially important that they think about the environment as people of color.

For the past few weeks I was out and about in the near hellish heat and humidity of an Aiken, South Carolina summer with eight students trying to help them  “connect the conservation dots.”  The task, as everyone knows is putting the pieces together to make some greater whole. For us birders and conservation professionals that means connecting bits and pieces of habitat to make things better for the birds we love.  Since most of the students have never birded or botanized my goal for  them is not so much be able to identify every critter they see and hear or snap off the latin names of plants.  Rather it is to put themselves in the context of a larger, nature-centered focus. So my questions  to them often go like this: “So guys, we’ve seen 1,000 year old cypress trees in the Beidler swamp  watching over Prothonotary warblers, people promoting hunting to save wild turkeys and other wildlife at the National Wild Turkey Federation, and  longleaf pine forests that need to be burned to conserve bobwhite quail. What ethic connects these things together ? “

Of course the simple answer is conservation. They all get “A’s” there. But I press the issue forward, asking them how THEY fit into all of this.  For an African-American engineering technology major from suburban Columbia who doesn’t know a warbler from a hole in the ground, the answer is never an easy one. To see  the larger picture one of the first assignments  I  gave was to have each student compose a conservation ethic.  Not only that but I ask them to blog about it and talk to their peers about it.  Now some of you know that  I’m a LEOPOLD-ITE and as such push the ideas of the land ethic whenever I can. And so the students are also responsible for reading A Sand County Almanac to help prime their pumps for the “connect the dots” exercise. Although I  got back a  couple of questions like “What’s a conservation ethic?” I was pleasantly surprised at the responses. Words like “sustainability”, “love” and “legacy” showed up.  Phrases reflecting  the connections between life, wildlife and our lives or honest  statements about a  lack of connection to nature but a desire to  learn filled my head and heart with hope.  Their blogging is evolving and I can see the connections being made from the ground up.

Note to self here—As much as I push the prophecy of Aldo Leopold, I’m learning a valuable lesson from my octet.  It is not an easy thing for many young African-Americans  who’ve grown up  connected to nature by  a satellite dish and a few wildly exaggerated nature shows  to relate to some old white guy who wandered around on an abandoned farm in Wisconsin waxing poetically about “good oaks” and such.  As much as I’d like to think that these kids would connect like I did –growing up rural and full of wonder when it came to birds and the world outside—it’s not the case. Most are in urban or suburban settings and even those that grow up in the  "country"  are looking to get out as soon as possible. We need to help these folks reconnect in relevant ways. And so  I think that I will begin to work on a “translation” of my beloved “Sand County”—a “revised standard version” of the conservation “Bible” if you will.  Heck, if folks can  translate the words of God and religious prophets to make them modern and relevant, why not the words of a conservation prophet?  It’s high on my writing to-do list! Stay tuned.

Outside of a couple of lectures to introduce them to the principles of conservation ecology, I didn’t want to waste good daylight on boring PowerPoint presentations.  That means that on most days we loaded into an aging but functional (and most importantly--air conditioned!) mossy green Dodge van and hit the road. My eager eight visited the National Wild Turkey Federation in my home town of Edgefield, SC  (http://www.nwtf.org/ ) to learn a little history and  how conservation in the United States has been supported by the efforts of people who like to occasionally kill the things they love.  Doesn’t that sound odd?  That someone would watch birds and try to kill some of them seems “wack” to many folks. Well it’s not. As a turkey and deer hunter, I pay taxes and license fees that go back into supporting the resources I occasionally exploit. Let’s be honest here. Because I spend so much time watching for other  birds in the new green spring woods, the turkeys win almost every time and so some might call my efforts less hunting than just being out. But I proudly carry the hunter banner and the ideals of the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation  (http://www.rmef.org/Hunting/HuntersConservation/ ) and want the students  to understand the ethic that underlies that.  I saw the connection exemplified almost like nowhere else when I was at Magee Marsh a few weeks back at the “Biggest Week  in American Birding” and was re-invigorated to make sure I carry the message forward  (http://wildandincolor.blogspot.com/2012/05/black-birder-in-black-swamp.html ). The students  seemed thrilled to be so up close and personal with such a grand bird as the wild turkey and I think they got the  message. Even though none of them hunt, they all like to eat meat and so they understand the connections to legacy, sustainability, ethical hunting and conservation.  They  were rewarded with a stop at a local produce stand on the way home to buy some of the sweetest peaches in the world that grow on the sandy South Carolina ridges and in doing so support local foods and sustainability! 

 Next, I wanted them to see conservation on the grandest  and oldest scale with superlatives presented in the ages of trees and expanses of rare habitat. We took a trip to Beidler Audubon Sanctuary in Harleyville, South Carolina (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DrGnVUssOs) . 

This is the kindest, wildest place I know as you can wind through true old growth, virgin timber in your tennis shoes and shorts without concern for cottonmouths. And so novices and non-nature-nics can be comfortable in the midst of wildness. It is a place where many of the bald cypress,  tupelo and other trees are hundreds of years old with a couple of specimens more than a thousand years in the growing.   

It is the largest expanse of virgin bald cypress swamp in the world and it’s in our back door here in South Carolina.  It’s a place where golden nuggets of feathers called Prothonotary warblers flit through the buttressed colonnades of forest almost close enough to touch. It is a place where water controls the ebb and flow of life. It’s a place I wanted them to hopefully be engulfed in by so many grand things that their minds turned off  of the mile-a-minute mental  interstate for a moment  and wandered the back roads at a slower, more contemplative pace. 

Sure, I wanted them to have a close encounter with a Prothonotary or hear the baritone bawl of a barred owl; but more than that I wanted them to see the connections to conservation in saving things that maybe serve less of a tangible purpose. Sure, they understand  the ecological services bit—tree give us oxygen, pollinators give us food, watersheds filter…blah, blah, blah. Really I wanted them to let a little bit of the idea that these were beings that had seen sunrises over a landscape where Native Americans held property right  and shared the bounty of a largely unbroken land with panthers , Carolina parakeets and Ivory-billed woodpeckers . I wanted them to touch something that had seen more than they, their children and legions of  generations forward would ever see. I wanted them to think about time outside of the years in the span of a lifetime.  I wanted them to let the trees and the swamp into their souls.  As we stood around the Meeting Tree, a humongous bald cypress that would take a half-dozen of us to hug, I could see the place getting into some of them. The questions flowed along with”    ooooo’s” and “ahhhhhh’s”.

 

 By the day’s end, we had indeed seen a Prothonotary up close and personal, singing his little golden swamp warbler guts out to proclaim his swampy knothole as the best in Beidler. But I could detect that the students took away a lot more than just the names and field marks I pointed out. Check! More dots were connected .

On the next trip I had a chance to expose them to something new. This time, I wanted them to see how the same organization, South Carolina Audubon (http://sc.audubon.org/), could conserve old growth in one place with a preservationist perspective, and not more than a couple of hours away in another sanctuary at Silver Bluff (http://sc.audubon.org/silver-bluff-audubon-center-and-sanctuary). 

Here they manage the threatened long leaf pine ecosystem and wetlands for federally endangered wood storks in a much more intensive manner.   Our trip to the center was a hit as Brandon Heitcamp, a trained forester with an ecologist’s heart, took us on a tour to talk about how he helps the forest work for birds by burning it.   

 What!  Burning things on purpose to make them better?  As Brandon showed us stands of longleaf pine in different stages of recovery and regeneration, it was clear that this is a very hand’s on place. He spoke with pride about the strip fires he employs like a paintbrush to get the pine to grow with a carpet of wiregrass and broomsedge underneath it.  He  talked about the risks of natural resources management and the reward in walking through head high wiregrass or hearing a bobwhite whistle in the pine. Only a few  years removed from where my summer students are as undergraduates, Brandon showed them what it took to be a competent, confident conservationist. The students listened intently to  him and were asking questions even though the humid heater of the day was turning up.  

About mid-morning we made our way to the namesake place for the sanctuary and looked over the sluggish Savannah River from  a bluff  fifty feet above the water. 

 A red-headed woodpecker flashed black and white and red through the woodland and then a pileated laughed maniacally at us –maybe for being out in the heat --before flapping across to the shade on the Georgia side. The place is full of history and Brandon helped the students connect the dots between all the peoples that had stood where we stood-Indians, Spanish Conquistadors, English settlers, African slaves--- and us.   

 As we left the river to finish up at the fish ponds looking for wood storks, I felt the swelter we were enduring was worth the sweat.  I am constantly asking question on the van as we travel and the responses are largely thoughtful. At the ponds where the managers draw down the water to make the fish more available to the flocks of  waders that will come into the refuge, the students watched  a Mississippi kite float on the humid air. They got to see and learn about water turkeys (that’s Anhinga anhinga for you purists) and even saw a wood stork spiraling higher and higher on a thermal like a glider.  One of the students found a molted nuptial plume from a great egret and I got a chance to explain how much of the conservation movement got started because of the greed over such a fine and delicate thing and women’s desires to satisfy the fashion thing.  It was hot and getting hotter but they trudged on listening and seeming to enjoy the day.

And so that is how I  spent my June. It has been a rewarding experience for me and I hope for the students. While their bird list limited out at just a few birds and a smattering of lizards, frogs, toads, turtles, mammals and plants, I am not unrealistic in trying to create uber-birders or naturalists. No, I’ve had to release my "make an army of mini-me's" ego and understand that not everyone is going to connect the dots just like I do. It is understanding Aldo's state of harmony but with a different beat.  On the last day of class I played Marvin Gaye's soulful,eco-social antem, "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)", where he laments the environmental degradation and call to conservation stewardship that Aldo Leopold called for almost forty years before. I then showed them the Michael Jackson  music video set to his little known but extraordinarily moving "Earth Song". It was as if someone suddenly upped the wattage from 60 to 100 watts!  I saw the bulbs brighten beyond "Good Oak" and "Thinking Like a Mountain" to encompass something more. Things were indeed coming together. In the four weeks that I had the pleasure of being in the company of Javashia, Iris, Briana, Quinn, Michael, GiGi,  Simone and Chris, there’s been teaching and learning alike. And it’s been a pretty fair exchange.  The essays they presented on the last day included introspective pieces that made me choke back tears. As these young folks connected the dots to where they live and how they see nature, I’m hopeful. Sometimes it just takes a different rhythm to get someone moving. I'm happy to say that there are now eight more multi-colored dots that might think about birds, nature and their connection to them in their own way. That can only move the mission forward.  I'm singing y'all. "Oh Mercy, mercy me...conservation is a state of harmony..."

Later,

Drew

Black Birder in the Black Swamp

Nashville warbler -JDL

Anyone who knows birds is stoked to a shaking, shivering hyper-active state when names like Point Pelee, Whitefish Point, Cape May, High Island or Dauphin Island are mentioned. All of these places are revered by birders as migration as "hot spots".   They are “migrant traps”- locales that due to geography provide places for migrating songbirds to rest and refuel. If the weather cooperates in that particular location, birds will fall out of the sky to find shelter and food until the conditions set things in motion for the movement to breeding or wintering areas to continue. As the vernal/autumnal cycles of move, mate and move again have persisted  for eons, it is likely that birds evolving in the stew of time and changing landscapes have been finding barrier islands, peninsulas, and expanses of open water as either critical stepping stones or barriers in their migratory march.   Given that many passerines are reluctant to cross large bodies of water with wind in their  faces or in rain that can drive them into the drink, migration may stall.  It might stall for a few hours, a day or a week. And so in the spring savvy birders become amateur meteorologists, keeping an eye to the sky and watching the sweeps of radar for winds that will push birds to them  on a northbound train or storms that will stall them out and provide a birding bounty as starving hordes of warblers, vireos, tanagers, flycatchers, grosbeaks and other neotropical migrants choose special places to concentrate in staggering numbers.  

palm warbler - JDL

Magee Marsh and the string of conservation reserves strung along the southern shore of Lake Erie in Northwestern Ohio provide the perfect locale for such events to occur.  A well known fact among many birders. that fact escaped me as I flew into the region for the first time.  The bird’s eye view of the rural landscape revealed a compulsively-arranged Midwestern checkerboard of huge brown, green  and gray agriculture  fields manicured like giant  lawns cleared and cleaned by plows and harrows. I imagined that the squares now destined for amber waves of grain and other crops once waved wild with bluestem, Indian grass and prairie wildflowers. Prairie chickens could’ve danced in such a landscape and wooly-headed bison probably once trod the same tracks that the tractors now claimed. Now though, there didn't seem to be a whole lot wild between the  green lines of the drainage ditches ditches that framed the squares. Everything from up there seemed in order. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a vision for what Ohio should look like but it certainly didn’t look like a very birdy place as the jet I was sardine-packed in to on the half hour flight from Chicago dropped closer to its destination.  The closer the plane got to the ground, the more I wondered about this “Biggest Week” thing.  What self-respecting songbird would want to get trapped down there?

Remnant swamp at Ottawa NWR

First impressions can be faulty and enlightenment is a wonderful thing. What I learned once I was on terra firma was that the legions of birds that fly across this landscape and find themselves here are better judges of its value than I am.  I love the moments of discovery driving across a new place. In those miles between the rental car agency and my destination I try to take in the locale’s character. There wasn’t a whole lot of geographical relief here.  Other than the on-ramps for the interstate I didn’t climb a single hill that challenged the cars transmission. Sporadic copses of trees and hedgerows that used to be forest gave dimension to what was otherwise a surprisingly flat landscape.  This corner of Ohio was much wetter in the past than it is now.  A little bit of a history lesson at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Ottawa (NWR) revealed that the whole region was once covered by an expansive wetland called the Great Black Swamp that stretched into Indiana and covered almost 2,000 square miles. The counties where I was headed, Ottawa and Lucas were once covered in largely uninhabited swaths of marsh, shrubland, upland hardwood and swamp forest up until the mid 1800’s. The rich dark soil and water standing in the low spots in crop fields that dunlin, yellowlegs and other shorebirds found on their way to arctic and near arctic breeding sites, was indicative of just how wet this place once was.  While Ottawa and Lucas still hold on to pieces of the wetlands that once dominated the area, much of the muck that used to draw waterfowl and shorebirds in by the millions has been drawn into ditches to make way for the expanses of agriculture and “progress” that I was driving through. 

The Great Black Swamp formerly covered northwest Ohio

 In spite of what has been drained, cut, and otherwise lost in the region, there are still treasures that remain.  The remnants of forest draw birds in like magnets.  As they pile up in the woodlots to feed and wait for favorable weather to cross the obstacle that Lake Erie presents, the birders are drawn in by the thousands to seek them out. “The Biggest Week in American Birding”, a festival sponsored by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO; http://www.bsbobird.org/)  has become one of the  birding world’s biggest festival attractions .

Kenn & Kim Kaufman (photo Nat. Audubon Soc,)

Ornithological luminary and fellow Sky Dawg Paul Baicich says that it is more than a festival though. In the magnitude and scope of its happening and impact he calls it an event. The Kaufman’s, Kim and Kenn, are the leaders of the push to make ‘The Biggest Week” event loom even larger. Kimberly Kaufman, BSBO’s Executive Director and her birding/naturalist/conservationist/ author/ superstar/ good guy/husband Kenn  have been tireless leaders , along with an equally  dedicated staff of volunteers, to make birding an indispensable part of the region’s culture and economy. The "Kimmer" is the human version of an American redstart; energetic and always moving. She is one of birding’s  most energetic and eloquent emissaries. Her husband, Kenn, is a dean of American birding who has revolutionized not only how we identify birds in his field guides but also how we think about the human component of birding. Both Kenn and Kim push bird conservation and diversifying the activity with a passion and persistence that carries weight far beyond anyone I know. Their reputations carry weight and they use that influence humbly and effectively. They  invited me to the festival to give a keynote of the importance of “colorizing” the birder demographic and of course to witness the spectacle that spring migration can present in the Black Swamp region.  As good as they are at birding and conservation, they are even better at being good, genuine human beings. I’m honored to call them my friends.

Once I reached the BSBO and the Magee marsh complex, I was amazed at the activity that was already going on. The parking lot at the observatory was filled with cars from at least seven or eight states as people whetted their ornithological appetites with creamesicle –colored Baltimore orioles feeding on oranges at the feeder behind the station. It was noon by the time I got there but the songs of yellow, chestnut-sided, Wilson’s and common yellowthroat warblers along with incessant chattering of warbling vireos and metallic “clips” of rose-breasted grosbeaks filled the patchwork of cattails, willows and oaks surrounding the building.  As the human visitors filed in and out of the gift shop, dollars and enthusiasm were being pumped into bird conservation and the local economy.  The buzz was beyond electric and it was all about the birds. But this was just the appetizer! The main course was yet to come and I was quite frankly unprepared, even with all the hype I’d heard, for what I experienced in the next couple of days. 

yellow warbler - JDL

The boardwalk  is perhaps the most famous birding promenade in the world.  It is certainly that for folks looking for the “butterflies of the bird world”, wood warblers.  Most of these tiny, colorful passerines  have traveled from the Neotropics ; the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, overcoming weather, predators and habitat loss to land in the Magee Marsh forests.  With built in GPS units evolved  to deliver  a package of feathers and muscle weighing less than an ounce to habitats separated by thousands of miles, the miracle of the epic journeys the birds make is part of the appeal that pulls people to the area.

 

The photos of the birding throngs I’d seen on social media sites intimidated me a little. After all, birding is usually a solitary or small group thing for me.  But at Magee, it is a spectator sport with hundreds upon hundreds of uber-birders blending shoulder-to-shoulder and binocular-to-binocular  with beginners  in a listing, twitching, photo-snapping, feather- finding- free-for-all. In fact, over the weeks of May when migration is heaviest, tens of thousands of people travel to the Ottawa/Lucas County area to see birds. In that pilgrimage, millions of dollars travel with the birders and businesses flourish in their wake.  Driving back and forth on the highways to the different areas, I began to encounter “Welcome Birders” signs on restaurants and other businesses. Kim even told me that in a year when the fishing and hunting had slacked and the economy suffered, the fledgling festival's impact was significant, saving the season for many businesses.  And so with the effect of so many meaning so much to the birds and the local community, I embraced the idea of the spring songbird spectacle and even began to revel in it.

Magee Marsh Birding Bonanza! Photo by Gunnar Engblom

Soaked to the bone but happy to be birding!

American redstart -JDL

 The first full day started with a downpour and the thinking was that it had probably brought some new birds in.  With the radar showing a break in the precipitation, things could get really good as the new birds might have been grounded overnight and they would be in a feeding frenzy once the rain abated.   Entering the west end of the boardwalk was  like entering a mystical migrant portal into a world of warblers, tanagers, flycatchers and other winged sojourners. 

Prothonotary warbler - JDL

scarlet tanager - JDL

rose-breasted groasbeak -JDL

A few steps in and Blackburnian, Prothonotary, black-throated blue and yellow warblers, melded song in the morning light. A few more steps forward and there was a northern waterthrush bobbing through a woodland puddle and a Nashville warbler singing a song way too loud for such a little bird. Find the crowds and find the birds.That one rule drives the throngs at Magee. It was indeed warbler world gone wild. There were black-throated blue, Cape May, Tennessee, Nashville, Wilson’s, ovenbird, bay-breasted,  American redstart, palm, yellow-rumped, black-throated green, blackpoll and the beloved “ “Maggie” (Magnolia) warblers everywhere.  By the end of the first day we’d tallied twenty-two species of  the little, feathered, wood sprites. In between the warblers there were “other” birds; a scarlet tanager igniting the canopy; an olive-sided flycatcher surveying the scene from a perch high in a dead tree;  furtive Philadelphia vireos; skulking Swainson’s thrushes; cinammon-colored  veeries; and brilliantly orange and black Baltimore orioles that became the “trash” bird,  too common to even draw more than a passing glance through the bins for most people. At spots along the boardwalk, ten, twenty or sometimes a hundred people would be gathered to drool over some bird.

Maggie (magnolia warbler)- JDL

And then there was  the migratory bird mob mentality that spread like some kind of communicable, feather-finding disease  when something rare showed up—or was  rumored to.  Whispers of a Connecticut warbler swirled but the bird never showed.  I’m not so sure that bird really exists anyway because it has escaped me like some gray-hooded ghost for all my birding life (insert sour –grapes-never-seen-it-before-but –want –to –really – bad- rationale here).  Social networking is the new and much faster rumor mill . When word came down through the Twitter feeds that the rarest of the rare, a Kirtland’s warbler, had shown up between (stop) #24 and #26, there was a mad rush from distant parts of the boardwalk to see the critically endangered bird. Most people walked fast to get there but some ran.  Of course with my “just flew” luck, I somehow missed the  looks at reach-out –and- touch- it- distance some people got as the bird flushed just as I raised my binoculars.  I tried to smile through the tragedy and the good Kirtland’s karma prevailed when I finally got to see it along with a couple of  hundred of other birders as it flitted about in a giant sycamore. I absorbed it from afar, watching it pump its tail in confirmation. There were hugs, high fives and smiles all around as the royalty of warbler-dom was added to legions of lists.

chestnut-sided warbler-JDL

black-throated green warbler-JDL

Can you see the Kirtland's?  We did!

Me, Doug and Rob

 Rob Ripma, Doug Gray, Paul Baicich and I wandered along slowly.  Sometimes we’d gawk along with the crowd and at other times find our own way and our own birds.  Besides the birds there were opportunities to reconnect with old friend and make new ones. The Magee Marsh boardwalk is almost like one, long, sinuous, buffet line with birds as the cocktails and appetizers. One moves along it at his or her own pace watching birds but constantly on the meet and greet.

Paul Baicich

 Smiles and conversation about "what's good here" and our lives back home made the event much more than an exercise in finding feathered things.  Some good-natured joking with the always affable Adrian Binns of Wildside Nature Tours and re-connecting with friends like Carlos Bethancourt from the Canopy Tower in Panama and Laura Erickson from Duluth help to re-center me in the birding flock. And there were new friends made too. Ted, a retired businessman from New Hampshire fell in like an old friend and became a Sky Dawg for day or two.  Cyber-friends who I'd only met through the magic of social media like the talented and ever enthusiastic Sherrie Duris and socially-conscious, neotropical,  tour operator Gunnar Engblom were added to my life list. Tony Defalco, an Audubon/ Together Green Fellow-friend from Portland who is part of the Center for Diversity and the Environment out there, blew in for a day of birding like a winged rarity. Catching up with him for a couple of hours as we studied the subtleties of "Philly" (Philadelphia) vireos and Lincoln’s sparrows was way better than checking off some mystical Oporornis warbler!  Of course it would have been beyond spectacular if Tony and I could have seen a Connecticut together...

While the boardwalk was the main attraction, we also found our way to other places like Metzger Marsh for Virginia rail and Stange Road for upland sandpipers.  As we bounced back and forth between the areas searching for birds, I noticed that there is a synergy of wildlife conservation in Ohio I’ve seldom seen elsewhere.  Private non-profits like BSBO, federal agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service at Ottawa NWR and state conservation agencies managing Metzger and Maumee Bay blend efforts such that it’s hard to tell one from the other. 

What’s more, they seem intent on breaking down the barriers between game and non-game conservation. The Sporting Birds Center at Magee highlighting waterfowl and warblers along with highway signs like the one strongly encouraging birders to support conservation by buying conservation and duck stamps are how it should be.   

A powerful message that birders must heed!

 After all, bringing whitetail deer and warblers together under the same conservation umbrella will only strengthen the effort.  “The Biggest Week” and BSBO are two critical vehicles for carrying the message forward. 

My naturalist reenactor friends

In the end, my short three days at the third annual “Biggest Week in American Birding” lived way beyond my expectations. I tallied a few lifers that I’ll always connect with this place.  Philadelphia vireo, yellow-bellied and olive-sided flycatcher along with that Kirtland’s warbler will always be Magee Marsh lifers no matter where or when I see them again. And then there were the fascinating humans I added to the  list.  There was a surreal meeting with a group of 18^th century colonial naturalist reenactors with whom I oddly seemed to have much in common personally, professionally and yes, even politically!

Diversity takes different forms on the boardwalk!

There were the Mennonite birders in straw hats and their young children who are already way ahead of the bird learning curve.

Not a pocket guide for sure!

 And there was the occasional human oddity, like the one birder carrying around an Audubon Baby Elephant folio as his field guide. Talk about old school! 

After a day of birding and people watching there were the wonderful meals and gatherings at establishments like BlackBerry Corner's with “fruit pie fallout” and Kenn, Kim, Deb, Katie and other volunteers helping to close long days with laughter. At Blackberry Corner's, a well-known birder hangout that serves homemade fruit pies to die for, I learned what a "Vulfinch" was and even met an eighty-something year old World War II bomber pilot turned botanist who’ll be my newest e-pen pal.  There was pizza at Porky’s and my introduction and beginning addiction to fried walleye at The Oregon Inn.  And there was beer-always beer. After exhausting days afield and a soul satisfying meal and conversation, I slept like a log in a cozy lakefront house that birding tour guide Dana Bollin  (http://www.blackswampbirdingtours.com/index.html) graciously donated for guide/speaker housing during the week.  Volunteer efforts like hers and all of the businesses that belong to the wonderfully innovative “Black Swamp Birds and Business Alliance”, make birding and the festival a vital cog in the wheel that stimulates the economy and spirit of this largely rural community. And so it seemed once again to come down to the people I met who made the birds even better.

A common sticker in area businesses

Blackberry Corner's -birder hangout and fruit pie fallout!

The future is now!

Appropriately, my keynote centered on the human aspect of things. It is critical that we broaden the involvement of birding and conservation to include faces of multiple hues. As America changes demographically, I believe that conservation will hinge on how inclusive we are of non-traditional stakeholders. Simply put, this means reaching out more to people of color. My arguments are simple; diversity at every level of biological integration is always a good thing. From genes to ecosystems, it defines success visa vie resilience and stability.  It will be no different for birding and conservation as it cannot remain a conversation or avocation that only speaks to or involves well-to-do white folks. Each time I venture afield to a birding festival, to give a bird walk locally or to hunt with friends, I learn that the human factor is what will make things go. I also know that I want to see more people of color doing what I do.  

SkyDawg Doug and new photog. friend Otis

Ohio again, seems to have a leg up on the diversity thing. I saw several groups of African-American students from Cleveland and Toledo touring Magee and Ottawa NWR. In my short time there I saw more people of color being exposed to nature than anywhere I’ve ever been.  I  talked to a couple of the young men and they seemed comfortable in the surroundings and genuinely happy to be there.  I watched a group of high schoolers surrounded by a flock of swooping, chittering barn swallows laughing, embracing and enjoying the close encounter. My heart smiled at the sight.  That’s the first critical step in the process of diversifying what we do-comfort in just being there.  If birds are to be their thing too, then that feeling of security and self –confidence is essential. Apparently the schools and other urban civic and educational organizations see the value in bringing different people to this place.  I applaud the efforts. The prospects for the future of conservation in northwestern Ohio look colorful. I hope to be a part of exporting that attitude to places closer to home.

The critters-- feathered, furred, scaled and finned, will do what they do if humans manage themselves to give them the room to do so. If we are wise and widen the audience who cares about such things, the warblers and other migrants will continue to flock to Magee Marsh and other places like it, even as the faces watching the birds and making decisions about the land become more colorful.  As I flew out on Wednesday, I looked down on the same landscape I'd doubted as I flew in. Now though, I was viewing things through a different prism and a newfound appreciation for what I was leaving behind. The throngs and excitement  over the birds are what the “Biggest Week in American Birding” is all about. Even more so because I see a commitment towards conservation that seems to embrace a bigger picture that is inclusive and innovative. If Kim and Kenn will have me back, I'm as good as there! Until then , I hit the send button on the link to join the Black Swamp Bird Observatory the other night (http://www.bsbo.org/membership.htm  ) and I’m proud to be one of the newest  supporters of what Kimberly and Kenn Kaufman are giving new voice to; passionate bird conservation that is paying serious heed to a more colorful future. I left Ohio prouder than ever to be a black birder--and a  Black Swamp birder too!