Sheridan Alford holds a cardinal while doing bird research. Alford is one of the organizers behind the #BirdingWhileBlack social media campaign.
Jun 03, 2020 —
A new social media campaign called #BlackBirdersWeek is highlighting black scientists, birders and other outdoor enthusiasts enjoying nature and being outside.
Sheridan Alford and Deja Perkins are two of the organizers behind the hashtag. Both are graduate students and avid birders. Alford studies at the University of Georgia in Athens and Perkins is doing research in Raleigh, North Carolina — birds were audibly chirping as she spoke to NCPR this week.
They came up with the idea after a video last month showed Amy Cooper, a white woman, calling the police on Christian Cooper, a black birder, in Central Park after he asked her to put her dog back on a leash. Cooper lost her job and her dog after the video was shared widely online.
NCPR spoke to them about the campaign and representation in the outdoors.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Deja, in reaction to the video initially last week, a lot of people were sharing experiences of being made uncomfortable or being discriminated outdoors. Has that happened to you before? And has it discouraged you from some of the work that you're pursuing?
Deja Perkins: The experience that sticks out the most in my mind was a time when I was out collecting samples for my research project for my masters. ...And when I was in one particular study site, which was in a rather new development in Durham, and a woman comes out of her home and asked me what I'm doing.
So I had my speech prepared and I go up to her and I tell her, 'Hi, I'm with the Triangle Bird Count and we're trying to survey the urban birds in the area.' And just going about explaining to her the entire project. I have on my shirt that labels me as a Triangle Bird Count volunteer. And she was still suspicious of me. She told me that she didn't feel comfortable with me surveying near her home.
And so I said, OK … that’s fine. I moved to a different location that was like across the street. ... So I moved to a location that was a little bit further away from her home. But she continued. She went back into her house. And I would say like five minutes later I saw her coming out of her house with her dog. And she was walking — not too close to me — but far away enough that I could see her still. And I could tell that she was keeping her eye on me. And she stood there and I guess her and the presence of her dog was supposed to be menacing and threatening. It was just her presence, I guess, was just supposed to tell me that, ‘Hey, I'm still watching you.’
I think that part was a little discouraging. And that day, I didn't do any more field samples because I didn't really understand why I was doing something normal but it just didn’t — it made me extremely uncomfortable in that situation.
Q: The video showed this sort of obvious racism, but a lot of the things that discourage people of color from going outdoors are more subtle, having to do with representation. Can you talk about that, Sheridan, and how people we see outdoors also matters?
Sheridan Alford: I work a lot with kids, from elementary to high school. And a lot of times when I go into these spaces and I kind of tell them that what I do, I do birdwatching or whatever, and a lot of them have interest in it, but they've just never seen someone like them do it.
A lot of the bird walks, the bigger bird walks that I’ve attended, I'm the only black woman there. And I think it's important because when we pass by people, as we're doing on a bird walk, you have the other patrons in the park and they kind of look like, oh, there's somebody that looks like me that's in that group.
Source: Twitter
Q: Deja, what are some of the social media posts that have delighted you from this week?
Perkins: The post from yesterday, which was our #BlackInNature hashtag day. Just the amount of posts that we saw yesterday of people using that hashtag #BlackInNature was just really heartwarming because a lot of times you think that you're the only one.
Especially since it's really rare, especially in birding, to even come across another black birder. And so when you see other people just who look like you, who are enjoying the spaces that you do, who are working in the same field that you are … it really makes you happy because it's like, wow, it's more of us out here than we think. And I'm not alone. And it’s just really affirming that, ‘Hey, I do belong in this space.’ There are other people out here enjoying exactly what I enjoy.
Q: I wanted to end by asking each of you if you have a favorite bird and why it's your favorite?
Alford: I definitely have a favorite bird. I feel like it's pretty basic, but I think my favorite is the Northern Cardinal. Just for me, I made a post about it today.
But it’s a bird that reminds me of home. I'm from Georgia. I see them all over the place, seeing the male and female follow each other all day. It just brings joy to my heart. And the classic like laser beam call is something that I use a lot when I'm trying to teach people bird calls, because it's one that everybody hears all the time. That's really just like a gateway bird for me.
Perkins: That's a great bird, Sheridan. I would say at the moment my favorite bird would probably be the barred owl. They’re an owl that you can commonly hear during the daytime sometimes if you're out. And whenever I hear their call — that “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?” — it always puts a smile on my face.
It's rare I feel like for me to ever see them outside, especially during the daytime. But knowing that they're there, it almost makes me feels — it kind of reminds me of how I feel being outside. You kind of rarely ever see us, but we're there. We’re present. And they're beautiful birds.
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