Red-Winged Blackbirds in Leschi: How Birdability Turns Birding by Ear into Belonging: Join Birdability's Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon May 3rd and 4th 2026

👉 What: Event: Birdability’s Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon
📍 Where: Everywhere That Birds Sing
📅 When: May 3rd and 4th 2026
📰 More Information: https://www.birdability.org/blind-birdathon

Creating The Infrastructure For Belonging

On a walk through my Leschi neighborhood in Seattle, I heard it, the sharp, unmistakable call of my all-time favorite: the red-winged blackbird. In that moment, the world didn’t feel divided into who can see and who can’t. It felt like what it should always feel like: shared.

Birdability is proving a simple, powerful truth: birding success isn’t measured by sight, it’s measured by access, community, and the infrastructure of belonging that helps every person listen, identify, and belong.

From Cassette Tapes To Community: My Earliest “Birding By Ear” Lessons

I still remember jamming those Birding by Ear cassette tapes into the Subaru’s dashboard and turning the volume up until meadowlark whistles bounced off the windows, followed quickly by the chorus of teenage groans from my kids in the back seat. Those rolling road-trip concerts weren’t just family folklore. They were my early tutorials in what I still call “seeing with the ears.”

Birdsong has always been my way into the wild. From the robins that rang through my Pacific Northwest childhood to the cardinals and orioles that greeted me on East Coast mornings, birdsong didn’t merely accompany my life, it oriented it. Long before apps and sound libraries lived in our pockets, I carried the world in my head as a kind of sound map.

That’s why Birdability’s Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon (May 3-4, 2026) matters so much to me, not just as an event, but as a signal. It says out loud what many blind birders have long known: you don’t need sight to be a birder; you need a way in.

Why “Birding By Ear” Is More Than A Technique

For blind birders, listening isn’t a workaround. It’s a way of knowing.

Training the ear refines memory. It hones spatial awareness. It builds the quiet confidence that says, I know exactly where that robin is perched. And that confidence doesn’t stay in the trees. It follows you into the rest of your life, because independence is rarely a single skill. It’s a habit of competence, strengthened one successful moment at a time.

I won’t pretend it’s always easy. Warbler season can feel like high-chip syllables crashing together like marbles on a tile floor. But five minutes of focused listening a day, maybe with a handheld recorder, maybe with a mentor on the other end of a Zoom call, starts to sort the chaos into individual voices. That moment is more than identification. It’s the beginning of belonging.

Birdability’s Core Insight: Access Doesn’t Happen By Accident

Birdability’s ethos is clear and resonant: birding is for “everybody and every body.” That isn’t a slogan meant to sound good on social media. It’s a design standard. A cultural expectation. A commitment to the truth that disability and health concerns shouldn’t determine whether someone can step into wonder.

Birdability exists because birders with disabilities and other health concerns spoke up about what was missing, what was hard, and what they knew could be possible. And the organization is animated by a line I want all of us to hold onto: access almost never just happens by accident. It happens because people choose to invest in it.

That investment shows up in two places at once: in physical access (spaces people can actually use) and in social access (communities that know how to welcome). Birdability doesn’t treat those as separate projects. It treats them as partners.

The Infrastructure Of Belonging: Map, Captains, And Culture Change

Belonging is not a vague feeling. In practice, belonging is built from tools, norms, and support systems that help people participate without having to fight for the basics every single time.

Birdability builds that infrastructure in three practical ways:

The Birdability Map: “Know before you go.” Birdability’s crowd-sourced map, built with Audubon technologists and fueled by site reviews, helps answer a question every disabled birder has had to ask too many times: Will this place work for me? The map is designed to surface details that matter: whether a trail is flat or rugged, where benches break the distance, whether restrooms are accessible, and even how safe a space feels to marginalized birders. t’s a quiet revolution to treat this kind of information as essential, not optional, and to put it in the hands of the people who need it most.
Birdability Captains: local leadership that multiplies impact. A map alone doesn’t change the world. People do. Birdability Captains ground-truth the map, lead inclusive walks, and turn “we should” into “we did.” In reflections from 2025, Captains and community members shared that Birdability gave them language and confidence to advocate for access, helped shift how organizations think about inclusion and accessibility, and made local birding spaces more welcoming for every body. That’s how change spreads: not through one big announcement, but through hundreds of local actions done with consistency and care.
BC³: moving accessibility into the permanent infrastructure of parks and land trusts. Birdability also supports a professional corps, BC³, helping parks and land trusts make permanent upgrades. That matters because accessibility can’t be a seasonal trend. It has to be a durable part of how outdoor spaces are designed, maintained, and communicated.

Layered together, these pieces turn curiosity into participation, and participation into community.

The Blind Birder Bird-A-Thon: A Day That Proves The Point

Birdability’s inaugural Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon took flight on May 18, 2025, a free, 24-hour “Big Day” designed by and for blind birders. The rules were refreshingly simple: give the birds at least two hours of your time, count only what you personally hear or see, and let curiosity set the pace.

When Birdability issued that invitation, I answered it in the most ordinary way possible: I went walking, through Leschi, listening for what the morning wanted to give me. And it gave me a red-winged blackbird.

That’s the genius of the Bird-a-Thon: it dignifies the full range of birding lives. Whether you identify ten house sparrows from a city porch or chase dawn warblers in the woods, every observation folds into a collective celebration of skill and sound.

Accessibility wasn’t an afterthought, it was the blueprint. Tools like Merlin Sound ID, digital recorders, and notebooks were fair game. Playback recordings were off-limits to protect the birds. You could participate solo, join a blind-birder team, or invite a sighted friend to guide, but the credo held: the bird must pass through your senses to make the list.

The organizers, Donna Posont, Jerry Berrier, and Martha Steele, frontloaded support with Zoom workshops, plain-language rules, and a hotline for questions. No entry fees. No fundraising quotas. No leaderboard pressure. The prize was belonging.

And then came what community always needs: a closing circle. After May 18, Jerry gathered lists, crunched the numbers, and planned to reveal the nationwide tally at a June 5 virtual wrap-up, stories, laughter, a few jaw-dropping rarities, and door prizes donated by allies across the birding world. A first annual family reunion, broadcast over birdsong.

A Necessary Counterpoint: Tools And Events Aren’t Enough

Here’s the tradeoff we should name clearly: a map can’t guarantee access, and an event can’t guarantee belonging.

Crowd-sourced tools are only as strong as sustained participation. Conditions change. Information goes stale. And if we treat accessibility as a one-time achievement instead of a continuous practice, we’ll slide backward.

The same is true for technology. Apps can help, but they can’t replace the deeper work of skill-building, mentorship, and community norms. Birding by ear is learnable, but it’s not always intuitive, and many blind birders need more than a tool. They need people who understand how to coach without condescension, how to collaborate without taking over, how to welcome without turning disability into spectacle.

Birdability seems to understand this tension. That’s why the organization pairs infrastructure with etiquette guides, community conversations, and ongoing outreach. And it’s why Birdability keeps returning to measurement and learning, launching a follow-up survey to understand how access has changed since the first community survey in 2020, where barriers remain, and what progress actually looks like.

In other words: Birdability is building, but it’s also listening.

Practical Implications / What This Means For Blind Birders And Birders With Disabilities Or Health Concerns

This work changes the starting line. Instead of asking, “Can I even go?” you can start asking, “Where do I want to go, and who do I want to go with?” The practical on-ramps are clear: choose a patch that fits your body and schedule, use the Birdability Map to reduce friction, practice listening five minutes a day, and find community through Captains or accessible walks.

For Birding Groups, Audubon Chapters, And Event Leaders

Birdability is offering a ready-made model for moving from good intentions to inclusive practice: clear information, inclusive language, accessible routes, and events designed with disabled birders, not merely for them. The result isn’t just “more participants.” It’s a stronger, more representative community that can sustain itself.

For Parks, Land Managers, And Outdoor Institutions

BC³ signals a shift from accessibility as “accommodation” to accessibility as design, durable upgrades, better information, and practices that don’t depend on one passionate staff member. This is how access becomes normal.

For Funders, Companies, And Allies

Birdability makes the investment case plain: donations sustain accessible programming, community-led mapping, training for volunteer leaders, and the behind-the-scenes work that keeps access front and center. Taking the survey, submitting map reviews, becoming a Captain, joining BC³, participating in community conversations, these aren’t “extras.” They’re the mechanisms that build a world where belonging is the default.

Access Is Something We Build Together

That red-winged blackbird in Leschi didn’t just give me joy. It reminded me what’s possible when we build the conditions for more people to listen, learn, and belong.

Birdability is doing that work, turning birding by ear from an individual workaround into a shared, scalable community practice. And the takeaway is as simple as it is demanding: access is something we build together, on purpose.

” Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a strategic advantage. “

Dr. Kirk Adams, Ph.D.
Advocate, Leader and Keynote Speaker on Disability Inclusion & Leadership
Leading the Way to Accessible Innovation

Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI)
Executive Director
Strengthening individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces.

Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here

American Foundation for the Blind
Immediate Past President & CEO
To create a world of no limits for people who are blind or visually impaired.

Connect With Me:

Red-Winged Blackbirds in Leschi: How Birdability Turns Birding by Ear into Belonging: Join Birdability’s Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon May 3rd and 4th 2026

Creating The Infrastructure For Belonging

From Cassette Tapes To Community: My Earliest “Birding By Ear” Lessons

Why “Birding By Ear” Is More Than A Technique

Birdability’s Core Insight: Access Doesn’t Happen By Accident

The Infrastructure Of Belonging: Map, Captains, And Culture Change

The Blind Birder Bird-A-Thon: A Day That Proves The Point

A Necessary Counterpoint: Tools And Events Aren’t Enough

Practical Implications / What This Means For Blind Birders And Birders With Disabilities Or Health Concerns

For Birding Groups, Audubon Chapters, And Event Leaders

For Parks, Land Managers, And Outdoor Institutions

For Funders, Companies, And Allies

Access Is Something We Build Together

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Red-Winged Blackbirds in Leschi: How Birdability Turns Birding by Ear into Belonging: Join Birdability’s Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon May 3rd and 4th 2026

Creating The Infrastructure For Belonging

From Cassette Tapes To Community: My Earliest “Birding By Ear” Lessons

Why “Birding By Ear” Is More Than A Technique

Birdability’s Core Insight: Access Doesn’t Happen By Accident

The Infrastructure Of Belonging: Map, Captains, And Culture Change

The Blind Birder Bird-A-Thon: A Day That Proves The Point

A Necessary Counterpoint: Tools And Events Aren’t Enough

Practical Implications / What This Means For Blind Birders And Birders With Disabilities Or Health Concerns

For Birding Groups, Audubon Chapters, And Event Leaders

For Parks, Land Managers, And Outdoor Institutions

For Funders, Companies, And Allies

Access Is Something We Build Together

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