Photo: Caspian Terns and Herring Gulls, Kenneth Haas/Audubon Photography Awards
Ajani Simmons
“Black Birders Week is more than birding...it’s a movement for liberation, healing, and the transformative power of nature as a force for resistance and reclamation.”
— Black AF in STEM
Black Birders Week changed my life. It changed the way I see myself in environmental spaces. It was the reason I joined the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance board and gave me the opportunity to meet Black birders, photographers, artists, conservation leaders, and other Black nature enthusiasts.
Ajani Simmons, self-portrait.
Even as a black Master Naturalist, I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how Black people fit into birding spaces until I attended Black Birders Week events.
It was a reminder that Black people have always belonged in environmental spaces.
Gull. Photo: Ajani Simmons
This year’s Black Birders Week theme is “Flyways and Freedom: Advocacy, Action, and the Future,” and the spotlight is on the Laridae family: gulls, terns, skimmers, and noddies, birds shaped by wind, water, and migration.
The theme feels especially meaningful right now.
Birds have long been symbols of freedom because they belong to the sky. But they have to land. And what happens on the ground determines whether they survive.
That truth has stayed with me while thinking about both conservation and community here in northern Virginia.
Queen City was a thriving Black neighborhood in Arlington for decades before residents were displaced to build road infrastructure connected to the Pentagon. Communities were uprooted, and landscapes changed with them.
The same kinds of development pressures that fragment habitats and disrupt migration corridors can also erase the places where people once felt rooted and connected.
In many ways, flyways are about more than birds.
They’re also about connection, safety, and the ability to move through the world and still find places where you belong.
I remember standing near the water one evening in Occoquan Bay watching gulls ride the wind with almost no effort. There was a sense of peace in its stillness. It struck me how much migration depends on trust that there will be safety and space to return to.
That’s part of why Black Birders Week matters to me.
Yes, it’s a celebration of Black birders and Black joy outdoors. It’s also a reminder that environmental spaces become stronger when more people feel welcomed into them.
Building that kind of community doesn’t happen automatically. It takes intention. It takes listening. It takes creating spaces where people feel safe showing up as themselves, whether they’re lifelong birders or simply curious about the natural world.
For myself and many others, Black Birders Week opened a door into community, conservation, and a deeper sense of belonging.
I hope you also find meaning and impact in the upcoming events.
Black Birders Week is May 24 through May 30. The following events are brought to you by the Northern Virginia Birding Alliance:
On Tuesday, May 26, join us for a free virtual presentation with Jason Hall, founder of the In Color Birding Club and co-host of the Bird Joy Podcast, as he explores how birding can be a joyful and inclusive space right now.
Both events are free and open to everyone.
The flyway is something we build together. Come be part of it.