Webinar – Representation and Community: A Black Birders Week Conversation
May 31, 2022
Amanda Sciandra:
Hello and welcome. I'm Amanda Sciandra, a brown-haired woman wearing a gold shirt sitting in front of a full bookshelf and a window. On screen, we have the title of tonight's event as well as the date and time and headshots of today's panelists. I'm the adult engagement manager here at the National Museum of Natural History, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's program: Representation and Community: A Black Birders Week Conversation. In just a moment, I'll turn it over to Dara Wilson.
But before I just wanted to share a little bit of information about tonight's event. This program was developed in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture and members of the Black Birders Week advisory group. We are so thrilled to be involved with Black Birders Week this year. Dara will tell you more about the Black Birders Week events and context in tonight's conversation, but check out the links in the Q&A to find out what else is going on online and outside.
Please note, tonight's program includes closed captioning, which can be turned on by clicking the CC button on your Zoom toolbar. The recording will be posted on our website as soon as possible on our archives page, which you can find a link to in the Q&A as well at the end of the program. As I mentioned, Dara M. Wilson will start us off and then pass it over to Carla Easter and our distinguished guests. There will be time to answer your questions in the second half of the hour. So if you have questions at any time, please put them in the Q&A and let us know if they're for someone specific. If you'd like your question to remain anonymous, just let us know when you submit it.
Dara Wilson is the director of education at Rethink Energy in Florida and a Black Birders Week advisory group member. Dara has worked for the Smithsonian National Zoo and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute as well as other state and local organizations in Tallahassee, Florida, and has been involved with Black Birders week from the start. Dara was actually in DC this past weekend for a bird walk at the National Museum of Natural History, which maybe we'll hear a little bit what she saw and has been involved with the planning of this week's events. Without further ado, I turn it over to Dara.
Dara M. Wilson:
Hello, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Dara Miles Wilson. I am a member of the Black AF in STEM Collective and an organizer of the third annual Black Birders Week. My job right now is to welcome you and to prime you all for a very candid conversation with some pretty fantastic people. So, no, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I will not be doing the panel. I am here only to do the introduction. But don't worry, I'm around all week. So if you want to find me, you'll see me behind the scenes by following all our social media pages.
So the theme of this year is soaring to greater heights, and every day we celebrate with a daily hashtag. Today, the theme is learning to take flight. So at Black AF in STEM, and along with our partners here, we've taken time to consider deeply how we all have developed our birding identities. The discussion today will cover a variety of subjects, including increasing representation in nature, ensuring an inclusive birding communities, contextualizing the scientific naming process, and broadening access to information so that the public can easily connect to and with the science that affects them.
As as we value cultural belonging, and we believe that interrupting systems within our culture that are oppressive and harmful to ourselves as well as others is a very collective effort. Excuse me. So I invite the listeners of this panel to employ their powers of radical imagination so that we may build solidarity across boundaries and borders to build an inclusive birding community for all. So please enjoy the show, and here is Carla Easter.
Carla Easter:
Thank you so much, Dara. Good afternoon, everyone, or evening if you happen to be someplace else that it's not afternoon. So it is my absolute pleasure to be moderating this session today. Before I introduce our distinguished panelists, I just want to remind the audience to submit questions as you have them, and we'll answer them in the second half of the show. You can check out the links that we'll list in the Q&A for more information about Black Birders Week at NMNH and beyond.
To begin, I'd to introduce each of our panelists. To begin with, Amelia-Juliette Demery is a fourth year PhD candidate, Sloan scholar and woman leader in sustainability fellow at Cornell University. That's a mouthful, Amelia. At her master's program at San Diego State University, Amelia studied how birds' beaks change in tanagers, investigating the relationships with song and diet across 350 species of birds. Currently at Cornell, she is investigating patterns of variation across a number of different birds and traits. On a personal note, I am hoping at some point that I will be able to get to Cornell to visit Amelia. Cornell is one of the premier birding labs in the world. So I'm looking forward to getting to see her.
Our second panelist is Lynette Strickland, who is a biologist and National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and spent time as a research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Lynette's research has focused on fascinating forms of color variation in nature from birds to insects to bioluminescent algae. So welcome, Lynette.
Finally, Chelsea Connor is a herpetologist, science communicator, artist, and member of the Black AF in STEM. She is from the Commonwealth of Dominica where she is actually Zooming in from today. I didn't realize you were in Dominica. Oh, no, no. You're not?
Chelsea Connor:
Not yet. Next week.
Carla Easter:
Not yet. Okay. Not yet. Okay. She's not in Dominica yet. She has extensively researched and deeply admires animals, and as a science communicator, she spends time putting together and sharing information on different anoles with her hashtag #DidYouAnole? that is adorable, on Twitter. She is passionate about raising awareness and participating in the conversation about increasing a diverse range of people in every activity. She believes that including groups that have been historically oppressed and marginalized in predominantly white spaces, like the bird watching community, opens more avenues for knowledge. Chelsea is also one of the co-founders of Black Birders Week.
So welcome to my three panelists. I'm going to go ahead and get our conversation started. So our first theme really relates to your relationship to birding and/or Black Birders Week. So as if each of you think about your positioning within the field of birding, or as I said, Black Birders Week, can you give us a little bit of your perspective and just some of your thoughts about the space that you are in and what it means to you. I'll just open it up for anybody who wants to jump in first.
Chelsea Connor:
Yeah, I can jump in. Like Carla said in her introduction, I am one of the co-founders, so I've been there since the beginning, and I've always just been birding for fun. I grew up on a beautiful tropical island and I got to see lots of amazing birds. Some of them fly through on their way to South America or their way back up to North America. Just being able to see that wide range of biodiversity is what inspired me. I never really thought of birding as something that I can do as a job, but then I got to America and I got to expand those horizons. Then I saw some barriers in it, and when that Central Park incident happened and we were talking, we were like, "We have to do something. We have to say something." And this is what it became.
It's been amazing to see. I've got to meet so many amazing people during this week every year. This is what it's all about. It's about being able to reach new people and get new people interested in birding and change that image that you think of when you think about who goes birding, who goes bird watching, who goes outdoors in general. There's a lot of people that do that and that they don't all look like one thing.
Carla Easter:
Thank you, Chelsea. Amelia, I see you. You've unmuted.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
Yeah. I'm happy. I'm happy to go next. I really, I love Chelsea how you talked about just growing up always enjoying the outdoors, and just because I was an indoor video game sports nerd, I really didn't go hiking until my junior year in college. So ornithology and taking that class was a really big moment for me to see how the different nerdy fantasy stuff I was doing as a kid was actually like making a field guide, but for dragons and not really realizing that you can make a field guide with real animals. So I really loved having that opportunity to, or just being able to explore the natural world and then realizing it could be a career was really exciting.
Now for Black Birders Week, I really appreciated it because at the time I was recovering from an Achilles surgery. I completely exploded my Achilles tendon. So being stuck at home, especially during lockdown and seeing people who looked like me outside, enjoying the outdoors. I'd never seen so many black people birding before, ever. It was just a really wonderful way to connect to nature that reminded me of my childhood, and also to see that I'm not the only one. But then also, what it means that I'm not the only one, that there's a huge big group of people out here in a space that really wasn't designed for them, and how do we make nature actually as inclusive as it feels to all of us.
Lynette Strickland:
I love this question. This is such a fun question for me because I'm primarily an entomologist and tropical ecologist, so when I'm out in the forest or looking for things, I'm one of those people that's looking straight down with a monocle as opposed to straight up with binoculars.
During my first postdoc, it was on the coast of Texas, I was lucky enough to land an apartment that was literally right up against a salt marsh. So that's when I bought my first pair of binoculars and started learning all about seabirds. It was an incredibly exciting time. So I guess I've kind of watched Black Birders Week grow over the past couple of years. I remember right after the murder of George Floyd and the incident with Christian Cooper and just the amount of anger and frustration that was palpable in the black community, and I just remember so many people I think is what it was feeling like we need to do something. So just really watching this community grow and watching all of the black and x communities grow over the past couple of years has been super exciting. So yeah, I'm really thankful to be here.
Carla Easter:
That's really amazing because probably a lot of people did not appreciate birds as much until COVID happened, and there was this wonderful opportunity to breathe a little bit when you had to be home, when you're looking out your window and you start to see these birds. Full disclosure, I started with one bird feeder. I now have seven in my yard because I just enjoy the idea of being surrounded by these beautiful creatures. So I realize I'm late to the party, but I have to thank you ladies for sort of leading the way for us to be there. Like you said, it's amazing to see so many diverse people out in nature because it opens up so many things that you could do, and the bar for engagement is not that high. It doesn't take much to go out and look at the beautiful birds and then have you look at so many other things. So, oh, fantastic.
I want to switch gears a little bit in thinking about birding and thinking, one of the things, when we were preparing for our discussion, we talked about some of the questions around representation, and one of the subjects that came up was this idea of naming, the idea of how birds get their names; not just birds, we could come up with any organism per se. But again, this seems to be a major discussion that has been happening over the last, I would say, especially the last two years, as people wrestle with particular issues. Museums are talking about issues of colonization, where we sit as a cultural institution, but maybe you all can speak to some of your experiences in thinking about some of the issues around scientific naming, or just around the science of birding in general. We used the example we talked about that changing the name of an organism from something that might be offensive to something else is not as easy as Puff Daddy going to P-Diddy, right? There's a whole other level of things that you have to do rather than not just changing your signature.
Anyway, what are your thoughts about that? And then how this is centered in this idea of black birding?
Lynette Strickland:
Well, yeah, I think it's interesting because the birding community and names of birds are sort of unique in that a birder can be anyone from someone who did their PhD on sparrows and has a research-intensive lab studying sparrows, to someone like me who goes out on a walk with my binoculars and maybe we'll come back and try and identify something at home. So you don't see that huge of a range, I think, as often and say, like with insects, right? So there are just aren't as many common names for as many insects as we have.
So I think the birding community is a little unique in that common names are really important and what is most often used within the community. So I think, yeah, it's really important that that's something we're considering as we're associating common names with a species, is like what is this name representing? Who are we choosing to display or talk about or constantly keep on our tongues by calling this the X bluebird or something? So I think it's really important to think about where are we at? Whose land is this? Who's not being represented by this name? Yeah. It's a really unique sort of issue to tackle.
Chelsea Connor:
Yeah. Speaking about other communities, as someone who's from an entirely different country that has its own unique culture. Back home, we speak lesser Antillean Creole. We have specific names in that language that we refer to for the flora and fauna, which meant growing up I had to describe what I wanted to know the name of to be able to find it on Google and figure out what it is until I got the bird guide that my mom gave me, which had the names of these birds in Creole. Then it was just the birds. It wasn't any other animals. So I still had to do a lot of figuring out. But the way that we interact with them in our culture, some of these names relates directly to folklore about these birds. That's really important for us. Culture is a cornerstone for a lot of communities, for every community, actually. To remove that connection, you're losing a lot. You're losing a lot of history. You're losing a lot of information. There's reasons why things have been named what they have in specific cultures and communities.
And not to go off the topic of birds, but I see this in other animals in other countries as well, where even if they're not naming it after some random person, they will try to give them a punny name, which can be great. But then you're excluding the scientists from that community from having the opportunity to be like, "Oh, this is what we call it here. Maybe we can include this in the scientific name," or giving them the opportunity to name the animals, the flora and the fauna in their country. So that's another layer of cultural connection that is being taken away.
I have that bird guide that I mentioned and it's out of print. There's another one that is incredibly hard to find because it is also out of print, but having those records and being able to keep those records going, keeping them printed and updated, which requires funding. That's another issue, getting funding to these communities. But the fact that I have these two books and that they're considered kind of rare because you can't find them anywhere else, that's something that we're going to lose touch of if someone like me or someone else who has it in a collection doesn't try to share that knowledge.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
Oh, both of your comments are so rich, and I think it really underlines the contention with changing bird names. For people in the audience, for context, I'm a member of the bird name subgroup that conducted listening sessions and hosted the American Ornithological Society's Bird Name Community Congress, which the video is on YouTube if you want to watch it. But it really underlined how contentious changing bird names has been since 2020, and I would argue before that too, for a lot of names because of that cultural connection. Because even with names that do not reflect the local community that already had a name for that animal, people still have a very visceral, emotional memory associated when they saw a bird for the first time.
My next point, to kind of think about what these birds represent, just to think about, can it be more than just this one person who discovered it? Can it be educational? Can we go into the lore where the local community had a cultural connection? Is that also going to provide us ecological information about the birds so that people can learn about the bird's ecology and not just that it was named after this one person in history who may or may not, likely did not, have any cultural connection to that bird in the first place?
One of the really big things that I learned through the experience with the bird names subgroup was how you change the name. You're also changing if the bird's of conservation importance, then that also needs to be, we need to account for all those downstream impacts, ensure that that bird's still protected. There's the educational significance. There's the, are the codes going to change, who has the right to change the name of a bird to begin with? How do we ensure that if we're going to do this, we're not excluding people at the table even as we're proposing to do this in the name of inclusion. It's not just a name being changed, but it really, to both Chelsea and Lynette's point, it underscores the importance of the names being changed to really call people in and really reflect just this rich diversity that we have in the community that loves the birds too.
Carla Easter:
Yeah. It's interesting. As I was listening to all of you speak about this, it made me think about where does community and citizen science sort of fit in that space? Which leads me kind of to connect those things, thinking about how research and knowledge stays within a local community. So you all make the point that someone could be a researcher in a completely different part of the world, discover, well, I'll put discover in quotations because it was already there, but name an organism that probably already had a name, but give it another name. What role does a local community play in that? The science staying there, but more importantly, you all as scientists, what is your role in that discussion? How much should a community be involved in things like naming or discovery? Again, just thinking about what does that look like in the future?
Chelsea Connor:
I guess I'll go first. So as someone who has done her undergrad research on her own island and is hoping to go back to do my PhD research, I always had thought about what's called parachute science, where people from other countries come in and they do research and they take all their data and they leave, and you never hear about it again if you're from that home country. I thought a lot about it. Then when I got the chance to do research on my island, being approached by other people from the communities and like, "Hey, what are you doing?" And explaining it to them. They have a lot of insight because they're the ones who live there every day. They're the ones who see the animals, who know what you're talking about, and they're able to provide evidence. And with the nature of science, you would need to probably do some testing depending on what it is, but it is something that you can note. It's something that you can attribute to them because the observations that they're making are not insignificant. They are extremely significant to your research.
How would you know where to find the things? How would you know what is happening, find an inference, be able to better phrase your question or design your experiment if you don't have that background information from the local communities? Being able to talk to people on my island and tell them, "Yeah, I've seen this too. When this happened, I've seen this before. And where have you last noticed them?" Especially, after something like a hurricane, because we had a hurricane on my island and talking to the local community in Sufri Air. They know whether or not the anoles have come back and where they've seen them repopulating the most because they live there.
Discounting those experiences does not, in my personal opinion, contribute to good science. Good scientists take every piece of data and consider every piece of information. You have to understand as well the cultural connection, again, that people have with these animals, because that informs how they interact with them. Some cultures have superstitions about snakes, like mine does, and that informs how people back home connect with snakes. A lot of them are afraid of them. They don't want them near their houses. They don't want them in their houses. And that is something that you have to consider and learn to work with and speak to them about if you're going to do that type of research.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
I love that. There's a paper I'll try to find. Well, I have it. I just have to try to put up the link. It's by LorrieAnn Santos, and it has this beautiful template. I'm sure it's not perfect. But it's a beautiful template for what Chelsea is talking about, which is community-based participatory research. It's a way to ensure that your research is facilitating and kind of mandating active engagement in respect of the local culture.
My master's research was done on tanagers. 353 species, all in the neotropics. I got all of my data from museums. I never once thought about whether I could engage or collaborate with another scientist who was actually from the regions where the birds are. That's a huge regret of mine because there was so much information that I missed out on. We're taught to, when we're looking at a system, we're thinking about these scientific questions, where we're taught to read about the birds and learn about the birds and learn about what you're interested in. There's a huge disconnect if we're not including the people who live with and interact with incorporate these same animals into their culture. So I will, well, when Lynette's talking, I'll put it on the chat because I think it's such a great paper and would be really great for all scientists to incorporate into their work.
Lynette Strickland:
Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. When Chelsea mentioned parachute science or helicopter science, I think it's such a huge problem, particularly among large institutions. So yeah, honestly, well, I think that speaks to why representation among the scientific community is so important, that people are able to do science and research and outreach in their communities. But also, too, I think a lot of it's like we really have to rethink a lot of the ways we do science and rethink where our priorities are and figuring out, okay, how can we not just build an inclusive community or lab or paper, but an inclusive institution? That means if your institution is in a country that does not primarily hire people from that country, how can we change this? Truly, a lot of the ways that we prioritize excellence, I think, has to be rethought, reworked, and then those new ways need to be implemented. That's a big call, but I really do think that is where science needs to move to actually make sure that we're representing cultures, values, communities. Yeah. It'll be work, but I think it's something that we need to do.
Carla Easter:
Yeah. Absolutely. And you've all touched upon this, it's a question of expertise. Who gets to be called an expert? How do we value knowledge, community knowledge versus, again, putting in quotations, the scientific knowledge, right? It's as if we're making some sort of value judgment that one is more important or better than the other. So again, it is. It's a bit of a dilemma in thinking about because for many people they spend their lives hoping they'll be able to name something. That's like the epitome. But again, to have to sort of step back and think about that naming. Have we selected for that in any science? What are we selecting for when we're giving people the opportunity to make those kinds of decisions and being able to make them in somewhat of a vacuum, which again, to me, Black Birders Week really does represent the expansion of who should be part of this. Everybody should be included in it. So thank you all. That's amazing.
So at this time I'm going to bring Dara back because I see we have some questions that are coming through on the chat, and I want to give you all enough time to respond to the questions, but also be able to have your last remarks. So basically, the first question is for everyone, but it is what are some of the things people can do to go from no experience in birding to developing basic knowledge? Are there groups to join or books to read, websites to visit, et cetera? What are your thoughts on that?
Chelsea Connor:
I think first is just figure out what's the easiest way for you to get outside. Do you have more time to sit on your porch and see what birds come by? Would you be able to go to a park and check things out? And then I use apps a lot, but I also have a guide, which I do not have in this room. I'm not sure where I put it. But it's the Nat Geo bird guide for north America. I use colored tabs because I'm very visual. So all my green tabs are birds I've already seen that I love. Yes! That exact one Amelia is holding. All my green tabs are birds I've seen that that I love, and all my pink tabs are birds that I would like to see and are currently in my area. So I kind of just move them around if I move.
So when I was in Texas, it was entirely different range of birds. And now I'm here. I've moved them to different tabs. Also, using apps like Merlin or the Audubon app. The Audubon app walks you through bird ID. So if you see a bird and you're like, "Okay, I saw a red bird. I'm in this state in this month. And I saw a red bird and it was hopping." It will give you, like, here are the red birds that do exactly that this time of month in your state and help you figure out exactly what bird you're looking at. It just takes that repetition of doing it over and over again to start to remember what these birds are. If you're hearing a bird and you can't see it, the Merlin birding app will help you figure that out. Then eventually you can learn those calls. I still haven't learned a bunch of calls and that's fine. Birding by ear is hard. It's okay.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
Yeah. I play this app called Hurdle where I can figure out a song within a second. Cannot figure out any bird songs. It's very ridiculous. But I was fortunate enough that there was an ornithology class out of college that I was also really fortunate enough to be able to go to. So I think I totally plus 1,000 to Chelsea's suggestions. The Nat Geo bird guide was the first one that I got, and, oh, sorry. yeah. Chelsea, if you could repeat that or put it in the chat. There's another one that I got that was even smaller, too. So there's a range of affordable options to buy bird guides and if you have a phone, there's the Merlin app is a really good one. E-Bird is one where you could just type in your zip code or the region where you're from, and there are a ton of different places that E-birders and other birders will put, like, "Oh, I was there at this point. These are the birds that I saw." And then you could go from there.
What I love about birding is that it's an adventure. You could just explore. If you're just like, "Huh, that's a weird bird. I've never seen that before. It's got an orange butt. What is it?" And then you Google it. And then you're like, "Oh, it's a California Towhee. It looks like this. It sounds like that. It scratches in the dirt." Just going outside to a park or looking outside your window, you have so many of those options available to be like, "I wonder what that weird bird is." And then you're in this rabbit hole and you have this emotional connection and you'll never forget that bird ever again, whether you know its song or you know its name, you'll be able to be like, "Oh, my gosh. I remember when I was just birding." California Towhee is one of the first ones that I learned about because of that adorable little booty. I was just like, "Oh, my God. It's a California Towhee. I'm from California. I like the booty. It's cute." Because of that, it's a staple in just my psyche for warm and fuzzies.
Dara M. Wilson:
I have to hop in right after you because you touched on three things that I'm obsessed with about birds and just three things, period. So first thing, just go outside. Just if you go outside and then just keep going outside, keep going outside, keep listening to things. Then you're bound to repetition, repetition, repetition, and practice. It'll just become familiar.
Second thing you mentioned, though I've never taken an ornithology class, I learned how to bird after I got a mentor and when somebody took me under their wing, sometimes it just takes somebody recognizing, like, "Oh, you like doing this? Come with me." I've been doing that for the past week. Now, someone's like, "Oh, I'm taking my kids birding." Or it's so easy to foster and develop that love of birds if you are genuinely interested. It's really fun. If you get really into an activity, that love, it's just so easy. It's just so easy to pass that on. Now, my mom doesn't know nearly as much about birds, but now she's like, "What is that? Is that a Robin?" Yep. Mom. You know it. She knows it now and she wants to do it now. So you can surf and basically now you're getting up there.
Then the last thing, you nailed butts. Bird butts, whatever. I'm so serious, whatever gets you interested. I firmly believe in this because whatever gets people interested in a thing, we shouldn't be shaming people about their interests. If somebody wants to go out and look at a bird because they like either their feet, they the way they flutter or they like bird butts or anything because me and my best friend, she's like, "Hey, you want to go out and look at bird butts?" We both have binoculars. And that was how we bonded. That's how we looked at birds together. That was our thing. And it was a beautiful thing together. So I really appreciate you saying that. I just had a nostalgic moment. I'm going to text her and I'm going to tell her, "Guess what I talked about? Little bird butts." So I really appreciate you saying that, seriously.
Carla Easter:
I think that's a great one to end on. Bird butts. So I will move us to our next question. Oh, let me just also say for the audience, we will share the resources mentioned in an email after the program with the recording once it's available. So please don't be too concerned about trying to capture all of the wonderful resources that are being put up in the chat. We'll make sure we get those to you as well.
So this next question is from Dallas. I'm sorry, Dallas. I believe Dallas for Amelia. "Can you provide an example of birds whose names are being challenged due to their offensive nature?"
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
That's a great question. I would say first that offensive is subjective and there is a whole list of bird names that are offensive for different reasons to different people. So I'm not even going to go there. Instead, I would say there's a great initiative that really was at the forefront of identifying possibly offensive names. It's called Bird Names for Birds. If you go to their website, they have a whole list of birds that they suggest to be changed. I think it's at like 146 species.
So offensive could be... So one bird that was recently changed was McCown's Longspur. It was named after a Confederate general who was the friend of a person who discovered the bird. So it's his past and what he represented was offensive. There's also other names, like... Ooh, I'm blanking on what would be a nice region. But for example, any migratory bird and they're named after, like Nashville Warbler, there we go. Nashville Warbler. It's not just found in Nashville, Tennessee. In fact, it's migratory. So why is it called the Nashville Warbler? If I'm wrong on whether it's migratory or not, please don't come at me. I study tanagers and I don't know. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but that's another thing that could be offensive because what region is it actually representing? This is a region that was from a colonizing nation, too. So those types of things.
The last one I'll put is when you think of bird names that were after women, they typically tend to be daughters or wives. So that's another thing that has that some people have brought up as being offensive because it represents a specific gender in a light that is not of a researcher, of a discoverer, but essentially some historical dependent or spouse of someone who identifies as a man. So those are just a few pepperings. There's a lot going on into what makes it offensive, as I said. So I suggest going on to the Bird Names for Bird list to just see kind of the real variety of what different names are proposed to be changed and some information about why.
Carla Easter:
Great. Thank you, Amelia. So the next question I have is for Chelsea, and this is from Indigo. Once Chelsea, you have a chance to respond, I'll open it up to everyone. But, "How commonplace is it to include authorship/credit to people in a local community who provided scientific information in a publication?"
Chelsea Connor:
That's a great question. The answer to that is not at all. I'm sorry to just come in and say no, but that's the answer. In recent papers, there have been a few people who in their acknowledgements or at the end of their paper, they say, "Thank you to X, Y, Z from the community who assisted, provided great resources, who did whatever." But this is not commonplace at all. The more commonplace thing is that they come in and they do the research; they get the information and then they just work it all into their paper. They maybe say, "Anecdotal evidence says," but they don't say where they got it from. They're not listed as co-authors even if their contribution was significant. They're not listed in acknowledgements. They're not even listed as a reference. A lot of people will respond to that and say, "Well, that's just not how it's done." We can change how it's done. So that's not a response in my mind. That's not a valid answer.
Carla Easter:
Thank you. Does anybody else want to add anything to that?
Dara M. Wilson:
Yeah. Yeah. Lynette, correct me if I'm wrong, because Lynette has a bit more experience in the tropics than I do. But I recall when I was working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution, I learned because I had an interest in doing something, while I was working down there, I recall working on a project and learning that if you... Because I thought I discovered something and I wanted to continue researching on something like that, on the thing that I thought I had developed. But when I was continuing to research it, I was having difficulty.
Essentially, when I continued my research, I was asking questions and someone who collaborated with me to help me along, they gave me a tidbit of information that essentially just let me know that researchers outside researchers like myself, because I'm from the United States, I believe and I hope this to be true, that we cannot collaborate at least within Panama without having a local researcher on the project. I hope that is true because if that is true, then that does preserve the quality of science down there. If that's not true, then shame on us or something like that because that speaks to what we should be striving for, the preservation of scientific integrity, the local natural resource heritage, all the things that we're even talking about, all the things that Chelsea was even talking about earlier. But Lynette, I'm hoping you can confirm this to be true.
Lynette Strickland:
Yeah. So that is true. I would say I think that rule could be implemented better because a lot of times what it is or what gets by is an entire PI of an entire lab list, one local person, and any project that comes from that lab, whether or not there was any collaboration with that person is following the rule. So, yeah, I think we could figure out a way to implement that better so that it's any sort of project that gets registered needs to be in collaboration with someone from the local community and not just an umbrella that a million different projects can fit under.
Carla Easter:
All right. Thank you. So let me get to what will be one of our last questions. But this one is a bit lengthy, so let me read it out for you guys. The audience would like for you to reflect on a bit of a dilemma and the push and pull, if you will, of creating spaces like Black Birders Week for the black community while also recognizing the importance of increasing education and awareness for those who might not understand the importance of including underrepresented communities into the fold of scientific research and access to the natural world.
So the question is how do each of you grapple with this balance of protecting and creating space while working collectively? If you have thoughts or suggestions for those who are launching Black Birders Week events and chapters in their areas, and how they can deal with some of the issues that they might have to face in their areas. Does that make sense? So protecting that space for Black Birders Week in the black community by, again, being able to increase that awareness. What are some of the things that you think are important for people to keep in mind and to think about?
Chelsea Connor:
Yeah. If I'm interpreting this correctly, I think it's important for people to take note of our mission. We put that out every year. We also clearly state what our theme is every year, but we always include our mission in things that we put out initially to announce that the week is coming out. In it, we clearly state that this is for black birders, who have been historically excluded and not represented in terms of birding and in the birding community. We would to prioritize those people in that group.
If you are organizing an event for a Black Birders week, I think it is really important to keep the mission in mind and also restate the mission in your invitation for your event, that this is meant to be a week celebrating this group who have been historically excluded and underrepresented, and we would like to make a space for them. It's really important to say that. So when you're making an event, I think that's something that's important to consider and something that you need to state. It's open to everybody to come, but it is meant to be a space for people who have not received that space before.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
Just to add to that, I think for people whose first response is, "Well, I don't know how to do that. I'm not a black birder. What do I do?" That's when you have to ask, give a voice at the table, and an equal and equitable voice at the table to black birders. If you want to make that space available, you have to acknowledge that you may not know what that space looks like because birding was constructed in a white supremacist culture, so there is a majority assumption that is not going to be reflected in black birders or any birder, for that matter, who does not reflect the majority. So I think just be comfortable being uncomfortable and calling in and not trying to assume that you're going to get it perfectly because chances are you're not.
But the beautiful thing with Black Birders Week is and will continue to be is providing that space and shining that light on a beautiful, rich community of birders who share the same emotions, the same passions and have all these perspectives that just... There's not a good word to describe the full magnitude of the impact, but just has really transformed what birding can be for so many people.
Carla Easter:
All right. So let's see. Let's go to one more question before your last question. So we probably will be able to fit in two questions. This question is what is your favorite birding spot?
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
That's not fair.
Chelsea Connor:
No. That is unfair because as soon as I heard it, my mind went to five places. Because I'm going back home, I'm going to have to say there's this river in my hometown. It goes down through mangrove. So there's mangrove and swamp. It gets a lot of cool birds and I'm going to say that that is my favorite spot, that specific river because my uncle does tours down it so I can go down his boat with him.
Dara M. Wilson:
I-
Lynette Strickland:
So... Oh. Go ahead, Dara.
Dara M. Wilson:
Rock paper scissors over it? No. Joking, joking. There was this place I used to live at before where I currently lived, and I thoroughly enjoyed that spot because I could just walk out of my back door and it was just birding was always accessible for me. I could look out my back and it was perfect. One, it was a roosting location for birds. So I'd see wood storks, spoonbills, glossy ibises. Just so many birds. My favorite part of my day, because I had a job I didn't like, and so I just rushed home to get so many birds. That was a highlight of my day, most days. I loved it. That was my favorite spot to bird.
Lynette Strickland:
I love that. So this usually upsets some people when I say this, but my favorite bird truly is the Canada goose. Maybe it needs a new name. But I just love them so much. I think they are elegant gangsters and how can you beat that in a bird, truly? So honestly, anywhere where I can go see them, in a park, at a bus stop; they like to just wander down sidewalks where I did my PhD. I think they're magnificent. And so truly anywhere where I can catch a Canada goose is my favorite place.
Dara M. Wilson:
Is it their butts?
Lynette Strickland:
I don't know. It's their long necks and their cute little eye mask and that they're probably going to hurt you.
Chelsea Connor:
Yeah. It's that glint of evil in their eye.
Lynette Strickland:
Yes. That's it.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
Don't hate the player. Hate the game, all right?
Chelsea Connor:
[inaudible 00:52:53]
Lynette Strickland:
That's why I love them. They're doing it the best there ever was in my opinion.
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
You need to come to Ithaca because they run the streets here. It's terrifying. You don't want any problems. You don't make eye contact. But, yeah. I love gulls because of that same attitude. So I understand. My favorite spot to bird was probably, I think, when I got the real itch for it and when I wanted to go into grad school for it, it's Bolsa Chica State Park outside Los Angeles and it's like an estuarine area. I really loved it because it was the first time that I ID'd a bird on my own. It was a winter plumage Pacific Greeb. No. It wasn't Pacific Greeb. That doesn't exist. It was Pacific loon. It's Pacific loon, winter plumage. My professor, Dr. David Moriarty, now retired unfortunately, but he was my mentor and really encouraged me to bird. Yeah, so whenever I go there, it's just so calming and it's beautiful and it's just a lovely place, kind of like what Dara was talking about, where you can see all these different things happening at once.
But just the memory of realizing, "Oh, I can do this and I can go into this and feel comfortable and confident and curious," was just such a beautiful moment.
Carla Easter:
Awesome. All right. So we're at our final question. I'll ask you all to take about a minute to respond to this question as your final remarks. Where do you hope to see Black Birders Week and the efforts that we've talked about today go in the future? And what do you think is a takeaway for the audience?
Amelia-Juliette Demery:
All right. I'll try to take a stab at this first. I think that's a beautiful question. I think one thing that I would encourage when people think about what Black Birders Week can be going forward, it's like what can birding be for people? Not just what do we have, where's the contention, but just think of all these different conversations and think about what are the opportunities here. To see how something that came out of such pain and trauma has really produced so much love and wellbeing and connection and empathy 50-fold, year after year, and just to see the possibilities there for different communities, for different identities, for intersectionalities, it's just this incredible standard of like not just what we can do as the black community, but what else there is. The horizon is limitless. I would say, think of just the possibilities. If this can happen three years running now, just imagine the possibilities for everyone together, collectively.
Chelsea Connor:
That's a really good answer. I would like to add to that I would love to see more in-person events. I want to see more black people getting together and going birding together. I want to see everybody be able to share their tips and their favorite spots with each other. I know it's hard because America is kind of big, but there can be regional get-togethers. We can definitely do that. There's been some this year. But I would to see more of that because being virtual is great. That way no matter where you are you get to participate in panels like this. But being able to physically be there and spot birds and share your joys with other people who look like you is the best thing ever. I want that for everybody. That's what I want. I want going forward with Black Birders Week, we try to coordinate more in person events where possible.
Lynette Strickland:
I love that. I think one of the really, really cool and incredible things about Black Birders week is not only all of the things that they've done, but the fact that they've served as an inspiration and a light for so many other groups. So one thing I would just love to see, sort of like Chelsea was saying, groups in person, but groups of black folks where someone's got their binoculars and someone's got their wildflower identification book and someone's looking for butterfly, just really this sort of inspiration and just this joy, just having fun outside looking for things, feeling a kid again. I think that's one of the really cool things that Black Birders Week has done.
Dara M. Wilson:
What can I say that hasn't already been said? Yeah. I just think back to what started this. You're right, Amelia. This started off with something pretty traumatic. But what we've let this grow to, I'm so proud of. I keep saying this, this is something international now. What Chelsea's speaking of, like Dominica and there are not even virtual. There are in-person events, international in person events. Like, a traumatic event that was horrendous has now grown to be something so joyful that I didn't even know about. I knew Lynette when I first started birding. Other than that, I did not know anybody. Nobody. And look at where we are now. That is beautiful. That is what I want to see, continue to grow because I didn't know of any other black naturalists until... I'm at a loss for words. So thank you. So...
Carla Easter:
Well, I want to thank all of you so much. We are at the end of our time together. I just want to remind the audience that there were a few resources that were mentioned in tonight's conversation and we'll make those available for you along with the recording. Again, I want to say thank you to Dara, Lynette, Chelsea and Amelia for your wonderful insight, for your participation and for all that you're doing for the field of birding. It's just so wonderful to hear you all. I also want to say thank you to our friends. It's the National Museum of African American History and Culture for their support of this event, and a special thank you to our donors, volunteers, and to all of you for making tonight's program possible, as well as our partners who help us reach, educate, and empower people all over the world.
If you want to keep up with us and our programs, please make sure you sign up for our weekly eNewsletter and check out our upcoming events on our webpage. Links for both are in our Q&A. And again, we'll also make sure that you have the other links for the resources, and please do not forget to fill out the survey. You'll find a link in the chat, and we hope that you'll take some time to respond. We do read every response and we appreciate your feedback. It helps to inform future programming. So again, thank you so much. I hope to see you all outside. We talked about with those binoculars on looking at the birds, looking up, just enjoying nature. I'm going to love the image of people looking at birds, looking for butterflies, looking at wildflowers, everybody all together. So again, thank you all so much and have a wonderful evening.
