Birdability Week: Celebrating Accessible Birding. Join Us for a Special Bird Walk!

Photo: Part of the Five Beaks Birdathon team

Tina Dudley

As part of our ongoing commitment to inclusivity and making birding accessible to everyone, the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance is excited to celebrate Birdability Week! This week is dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of accessible birding experiences and ensuring that bird watching is a welcoming activity for all individuals, regardless of mobility challenges or disabilities.

Why Accessibility Matters

Birding should be an activity enjoyed by everyone, and accessibility is a key factor in making this happen. For many, enjoying nature and birdwatching can be difficult if trails and facilities are not designed with accessibility in mind. By promoting accessible birding, we not only open up opportunities for more people to experience the joy of birdwatching, but we also foster a more inclusive community that values everyone’s ability to connect with nature.

Part of the Five Beaks Birdathon team

Accessibility features like level trails, clear signage, and accessible restrooms make a significant difference in allowing people with different abilities to enjoy birding. These features ensure that nature experiences are enjoyable, stress-free, and available to all, enhancing the sense of community and belonging.

Accessibility improvements benefit not only individuals with disabilities but also the broader community. Features such as smooth, well-maintained paths, clear signage, and accessible restrooms enhance the overall usability of spaces for everyone, including those with temporary injuries, parents with strollers, and older adults who may have mobility challenges. Birding is an activity particularly popular with our seniors. By designing and maintaining accessible trails, we ensure that the joy of birding can remain a part of people's lives well into their later years, preserving their connection to nature and their sense of independence.

Join Us for the Birdability Bird Walk

To celebrate Birdability Week and highlight accessible birding opportunities, we invite you to join us for a special Birdability Bird Walk on Sunday, October 27th. Here are the details:

Time: 8:00 AM
Meeting Location: Great Marsh Trailhead, Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge

Directions: Located on Gunston Road, the parking lot is on the right 1.25 miles past High Point Road (which leads to Mason Neck State Park). Look for the 25 mph Speed Limit sign just before the parking lot.

The Great Marsh Trail is an excellent example of an accessible trail, featuring a level and wide asphalt surface for about 0.85 miles, leading to a scenic overlook of the Great Marsh. The trail is wheelchair accessible, ensuring a comfortable birding experience for all participants. For more details on the trail, you can check the Birdability review on the Birdability Location Explorer by searching for "Great Marsh Trail."

We plan to return to the parking lot by 10:00 AM. After the walk, participants may want to tour the Visitor Center, look for birds on Belmont Bay from the concrete pad behind the Visitor Center,  and take a short stroll on the Osprey Trail overlooking Belmont Bay at Mason Neck State Park. Accessible restrooms are available at the Visitor Center for your convenience.

The Friends of Mason Neck State Park are committed to improving accessibility in the park. You can learn more about their Accessibility Program here. 

Why You Should Attend

This bird walk is a great opportunity for anyone who has a mobility restriction such as a wheelchair, a walker, or someone who would benefit from a more level walking surface, but all are welcome to attend!

It's also a chance to meet like-minded bird enthusiasts and engage with our community in celebrating Birdability Week. Whether you're a seasoned birder or new to the hobby, this event promises to be a rewarding experience.

For any questions or additional information, please feel free to reach out to us. Let’s make birding accessible and enjoyable for everyone!

Happy birding!

A Birdathon Story: The Three Beaks

Photo: Yellow Warbler, Sheen Watkins/Audubon Photography Awards

Our Program Administrator Louise Edsall led her team (composed of herself, her husband Bart Edsall and his caregiver, Salay Kamara) on a successful big-day outing. Louise shares her story of the team’s experience below.

The Three Beaks Birdathon Team!

“The three of us had a great time on this adventure. We were amazed at how many species we got just in our backyard at the feeders and nearby brush and woods where our home is located in Manassas. Our newest visitors are the Indigo Buntings, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and Gray Catbirds. Starting this week, we’ve been seeing six male and six female catbirds at the same time. Those Indigo Buntings are just gorgeous and their songs are beautiful, too. The Red-shouldered Hawk seemed to pass just as I commented, “Now where is that hawk?” Boom, there he was! Same with the Scarlet Tanager which I found while walking down our long driveway to the mailbox. It just pays to be alert!

Our count was limited to wheelchair-accessible places because of Bart’s disability, so the Neabsco Creek Boardwalk and Trails provided a very user-friendly access to the boardwalk and paved trails. We were joined by a young mom and her three-year old son as we were leaving and the young boy tried to race Bart’s wheelchair. Bart’s energy along the walk flushed the Field Sparrow and the Baltimore Oriole. We got the female Orchard Oriole as we entered the boardwalk and the Yellow Warblers put on a show there as well. Bart was at boardwalk wall height which limited his view a bit but he was the first to spot the Osprey which had caught a fish just in front of the “No Fishing” sign. Bart also saw our first Great Blue Heron.The Red-winged Blackbirds were unusually ‘friendly’.

We had a great time outdoors despite the limitations of our access to woodland trails. The three of us had a load of fun. Migration is on full-steam!”

The Three Beaks team identified 62 species across four locations. You can donate here to help this wonderful team reach their fundraising goal of $1,500. 

Let’s Put Northern Virginia on the Map...The Birdability Map!

Annaliese Meistrich, ASNV intern

“Birding is for everybody, and every body!” This is the motto of Birdability, a growing global effort that works to decrease barriers for birders with mobility, vision, developmental, hearing, and other health challenges. The organization, and the movement it inspired, hope to eliminate many of the accessibility challenges that these birders face on a regular basis in order to share the joys of birding with them. The founder, Virginia Rose, a board member of Travis Audubon in Texas, had fallen at a young age and now uses a wheelchair. She found a passion in nature and birding which became the inspiration behind Birdability. A key effort is to have birders and others contribute birding locations to the Birdability Map, “a crowd-sourced map of accessible birding locations, with details of the accessibility features of them.” Their website has a wealth of resources on birding with accessibility challenges, and how individuals and organizations alike can ensure they are welcoming and inclusive. ASNV has a team of board members and adult and youth volunteers who have to date added 43 trails to the map.

The beauty behind this movement is that anyone can contribute! All it takes is a few minutes of your time while you are on a bird outing. By completing and posting responses to a simple survey, you can submit accessibility reports and help put Northern Virginia on the map. All information you need on assessing a trail can be found here. 

As you prepare to review a trail, here are a few things to keep in mind. First, check the Birdability Map itself, to ensure that the trail you wish to review has not just been assessed. It can be helpful to have a printed version of the survey questions while out on the trail. (A concise, printable checklist will be added soon to the website.) You might want to complete and submit the survey later from notes, when Internet access may be more certain. In addition, a tape measure has proven to be extremely useful for accurately measuring railing heights, door entry widths, etc.

Here are a few things to record about general accessibility, if able. 

1. First, public transit access. Are there additional methods of transportation (bus, metro) besides an automobile to this site?

2. Is the trail particularly wet or muddy most of the time, during high tide, or after a storm?

3. Any breaks in an otherwise accessible trail?

4. It is important to note any park issues such as car break-ins, vandalism, or any other notable information.

5. Lastly, if you know how to do this, copy and paste the eBird link for the site or note interesting birds that can be seen there. That way people will know what birds to look for and the general area the birds might be in.

There are a few specific tips that will prevent confusion. For example, 

• when placing the pin drop, ensure that you manually place the pin on the trail head. If you use the address alone, the pin drop does not necessarily mark the actual start of the trail. This can cause the report to be misplaced on the Birdability Map.

• If you post trail segments for one trail--a common practice when trails are not completely accessible in all sections--accurately placing different pin drops and naming the trail segments distinctly is especially important for separating the reports on the map.

• Last is the issue of measuring slopes. The survey requests information regarding the steepness of slopes. Sometimes this information is available on signs at trailheads. Other times your guess is the best you can do! There are comment boxes for every survey question so you can note the fact that this observation was your best approximation.

• If you would like to determine the slope grade, free smartphone apps like Bubble Level for iPhone can help with this process. To calculate the slope yourself, measure--or at least estimate--the length of the slope and then, from the bottom of the slope, measure from the ground up to where the measuring tape is level with the top of the slope. (See illustration below.)

• With this information, you can now find the slope grade by dividing the slope height into the length of the slope in inches. For instance, the grade of a 20-foot slope with a 30-inch rise is (20 x 12 inches) divided by 30 is 8:1.

• You can also post photos of slopes, obstacles, or other sights of interest to this birding location so readers can assess the trail based on their own capacities. In addition to this, you can pin any notable access points on the trail such as observation platforms, bird blinds, car birding platforms or anywhere else that one may be able to bird from.

If you would like more information, there are many resources at birdability.org. If you have mapping questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@audubonva.org. 

Thank you for joining us in supporting the Birdability movement and happy trails to everyone!