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“This focus on diversity is good. It is the future of conservation. It is good.” -Dave Magpiong “There was so much incentive for me to stop birdwatching.” -John C. Robinson I spent all day Saturday at the Focus on Diversity: Changing the Face of American Birding conference organized ably by the irrepressible Dave Magpiong and a host [...]

Dave Magpiong is a birder, father, Special Education teacher, and founder of the Fledging Birders Institute, “a non-profit environmental education organization with the dual mission of enhancing the healthy development of our youth with the profound benefits of birdwatching AND promoting public awareness of avian diversity and factors which threaten it thereby fostering a societal bird conservation ethic.”  He [...]

What started as me posting a link on my private Facebook page about how much I hate the Transportation Security Administration, quickly turned into a very revealing conversation about race and could be a very large and underlying issue of why we don’t see more people of color in birding or enjoying nature in general. [...]

Years ago, I wrote about the glaring homogeneity in North American birding circles and by glaring, I mean all that bright white skin. The lack of diversity in the ranks of enthusiasts has long been recognized as a deficiency at best and at worst the certain death knell of our nation’s natural resources. After all, [...]

Chris Clarke has declared today, December 1, 2005, to be “Blog Against Racism” Day. I found myself at a loss as to what role this humble blog could play in such a consciousness-raising campaign. Then I considered a few names, the luminaries of American birding: John James Audubon Roger Tory Peterson David Allen Sibley Kenn [...]