This is Bird Note.

Molly Adams founded the Feminist Bird Club to try to make birding safer and more inclusive.

Birders who are black visibly disabled and queer are going to face challenges

while birding that cisgender able-bodied white people do not.

And our goal is to reduce these obstacles.

Along with co-author Sidney Golden Anderson,

Molly wrote a book titled Birding for a Better World that welcomes newcomers to birding

and offers ways to make events more inclusive and accessible.

We hope that this book encourages organizers to consider what needs they might not already be meeting

and find ways to accommodate them.

Throughout the book, you'll see a lot of suggestions from other birding organizations

and ways that organizers can look to their own members and other groups in their community.

The book also debunks some myths that can scare people away from birding.

Sidney says,

Birding does not necessarily mean bird walk.

In fact, you don't have to walk at all while birding.

Birding is for all people of all ages and abilities.

You don't have to have fancy equipment to begin birding,

and yes, you're a birder, even if you're a beginner.

What's more, Sidney says that birding can help improve our world.

Birding with mindfulness can be a profoundly healing practice

that can help one redevelop a sense of interconnectivity with nature.

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