The Birding Community Making a Difference
If you were planning a birding festival in Alabama, my guess is that you would choose as your location a national hotspot like Dauphin Island or Ft. Morgan along the gulf coast. I doubt you would choose to hold it smack dab in the middle of the state. My guess is that if you were on the planning team, you might also choose to host it during fall or spring migration or during the winter when ducks are plentiful. Furthermore, you would be sure to avoid the hottest month of the year.
I don’t know what prompted Alabama Audubon to hold a festival in Greensboro—the Catfish Capital of the state—in August.
It was a stroke of genius.
This festival is bucket list worthy.
I will be back.
The Black Belt was a term originally given to denote the fertile black soil that boasted cotton and tobacco. As time moved on, however, it came to refer to the social history of the region, particularly the history of slavery and black workers. After the Civil War, many freedmen remained in the region—which stretched across Alabama from Georgia to Mississippi—as tenants and sharecroppers. It’s here, in the heart of this belt, that Alabama Audubon holds an annual gathering of birders. They call it the Black Belt Birding Festival.
While most of the participants for the festival came from across the state, I drove in from my home in Atlanta. I met a few birders from Tennessee, as well as one eager birder from Boston who was racking up southern lifers. Others came from as far away as California and Maine. I was drawn to the festival because of the uniqueness of the event, to build my Alabama life list, and to visit a part of my home state for which I had never paid much attention. Growing up in Birmingham, we would take a trip every Thanksgiving to nearby Montgomery, but the Black Belt was always out-of-sight and out-of-mind. A grandmother I barely remember from my days as a toddler, grew up in nearby Pine Level and taught in a one-room schoolhouse in the same era and area where Rosa Parks grew up. I knew of Selma, but not much else of central Alabama. The festival provided the opportunity to see and learn about a region which—though close to the home of my youth—was unfamiliar to me.
The 4th annual festival did not disappoint. Numerous birding field trips and walks were offered, showcasing the largest prairie ecosystem in the southeast, grasslands, the Talladega National Forest, numerous catfish farms, wetlands, farmland, the Cahaba River, and the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The sun was hot but so was the birding. I notched 90 species, including a few birds that I saw on stops to and from the festival. I enjoyed great views of several Dickcissels and a pair of Ground Doves—birds I had only previously briefly seen. I delighted in watching a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher adorning a fence bordering a farm and on two occasions marveled at the acrobatic display of a dozen Swallow-tailed Kites.
In addition to bird walks, the festival was highlighted by a passionate presentation on the natural prairie lands of the South by Dr. Dwayne Estes, Executive Director at Southeastern Grasslands Institute. Some festival goers took advantage of the opportunity to tour the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, where biologists are raising endangered mollusks for release and to restore their populations in the Cahaba River which was named by The Nature Conservancy as one of the eight hotspots of aquatic biodiversity in the U.S. that must be saved. Other festival goers were able to meet face-to-face with several raptors during a presentation by the Alabama Wildlife Center, the state’s oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation facility. Those with a penchant for art enjoyed the artistry of various local artists. Birders savored the experience. Restaurants, hotels, local small businesses, and government coffers welcomed a fresh influx of cash.
Strangely, it wasn’t the birds that made this birding festival so impressive—though they certainly did their part. Rather, it’s the last sentence in the previous paragraph. In promoting this event, Alabama Audubon distinctly states that this festival has a very specific purpose “to bring economic and environmental benefits of bird-based ecotourism to one of the country’s most underserved and primarily rural areas.”
While there is a growing understanding of how birds, birding, and birders can play a role in enhancing our physical and mental wellbeing, the Black Belt Birding Festival showcases how our birding community can augment social and community wellbeing too. Birders and conservationists are making a difference—and not just for birds.
Well done Alabama Audubon!
Bird Well. Live Well.
-Jack
Jack Bruce is the founder of WellBirds, an organization dedicated to sharing how birds, birding, and nature contribute to our wellbeing. Invite Jack to speak at your next event.