On Saturday, October 4, 22 birders awoke before sunrise, loaded into vans, and began our journey from Northern Virginia to Cape May, NJ, our eyes set on this faraway destination perfectly aligned with the Atlantic Flyway, one of the four “avian superhighways” in North America.
After the video of a white woman making racist threats against Christian Cooper, a black birder in Central Park, a group of black professionals working across science, technology, engineering and math known as BlackAFinSTEM, organized #BlackBirdersWeek from May 31 – June 5.
Last fall Kit Fechtig, an avid birder from Pungoteague, Virginia was birding around Machipongo, on Virginia’s barrier island, when he spotted a Northern Wheatear, a small thrush-like bird who is almost never seen in the continental United States. He reported the sighting to the Eastern Shore Post which wrote an article about this rare find.
Many Audubon education and advocacy programs have been canceled or paused due to Covid-19. Fortunately, the Audubon at Home (AAH) program continues. Applicant numbers are down, but people who are proactive, enthusiastic and committed about attracting native wildlife to their yards continue to apply.
