By Lynne Arrowsmith

Douglas “Birdman” Gray is one of my favorite birders, and he has agreed to share his “Bird of the Month” each month with the Outdoor Afro community. Birding is a hobby almost anyone can do no matter the age, and it can open up a whole new world of recreation and environmental stewardship. Birds are everywhere — from the tallest city skyscrapers to the remote backwoods! With Doug’s help, you can perhaps come to recognize birds found right where you live!

Bird of the Month
Douglas Gray, Outdoor Afro Contributor

Seen from a distance or in poor light, this month’s Bird of the Month just seems like a small, dark bird. But seen at close range and in good light, this bird’s appearance can be almost breathtaking. This month’s featured bird is the Indigo Bunting.

With such a pretty name, you’d expect a pretty bird…and you’d not be disappointed. The deep velvet blue feathers of the Indigo Bunting sets this bird apart indeed. (The deep velvet blue of the male…that is! So void of distinguishing field marks, the female Indigo Bunting hardly seems to even be a member of the same species of bird. Which is actually a very good thing, as the female spends her time trying to stay concealed as she incubates eggs and cares for the young. And indeed, she is not often seen, but even when seen, she is easily overlooked. I’ve added a second picture to this BOTM so you can see the contrast between the male and female.)

With his astonishing beauty, the male Indigo Bunting seems to know his beauty, and glorify in it, by singing persistently. At a recent picnic at Fort Harrison State Park, I could hear an Indigo Bunting singing nearby as soon as I walked up. (The mnemonic often used for identifying their paired call is, “fire; fire; where? where? here; here; see it? see it?”) I arrived at the picnic at about 11:30AM and that bird sang almost without ceasing until I left at 3:00PM.

An interesting piece of information about the Indigo Bunting is the fact that its color is actually not blue at all, but black…(believe it or not). The blue color is generated by the diffraction of light through their feathers which makes them appear blue. Because of this, they can appear as shades from turquoise to shades of black, depending on how the light hits them. So this beautiful blue-feathered display can actually be seen as a trick of nature.

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Douglas “Birdman” Gray has been birding almost all of his life. He grew up on a family farm near Clarksville, Tennessee, where they grew crops ranging from apricots to wheat, and most things in between. They also raised chickens, guineas, pigs, horses, and a cow named…….Apples. Doug’s grandfather identified the birds they would see daily on the farm.

Doug now resides in Indianapolis and works in Parenteral Engineering with Eli Lilly and Company. Most of his current birding takes place in Indiana, with a concentration on Central Indiana, where he leads bird walks for “Backyard Birds“. Doug can be reached at 317-255-7333.

Dianne Glave has been a friend of Outdoor Afro from the beginning, starting when I discovered her important work related to African American foodways to research for a blog I wrote last year. Dianne’s newest book, Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage has just begun arriving in mailboxes this week. So we asked Dianne to share with us some of the journey leading her to write this terrific work, and we hope you will be inspired to purchase your own copy that covers a ground-breaking perspective of African-American historical engagement with the outdoors.

My parents took me camping in upstate New York when I was a child. We stayed in cabins for one week each summer from when I was a small child to my early teens. I was basically set free to roam around the property of the camp. I saw my parents at meals in the common dining hall. I sat on the dock with my fishing pole putting worms on the hook, catching fish, and then throwing them back in the water. I had so much freedom. I’d row from one side of the lake to the other by myself. I ran around the woods by myself jumping over logs and sitting in fallen leaves. My grandparents also had a farm in Jamaica in the Caribbean. I was down there visiting them often during the summer as a child. I saw a pig slain—his head and neck placed on a low swing. I looked into the well that provided our drinking water; it was filled with golden fish which I now understand cleaned the water.

It all came together when I went to Stony Brook University to work on my M.A. and Ph.D. in history emphasizing African Americans and the environment. Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage is more than a decade of effort from my time at Stony Brook. Actually, it goes back to my parents and grandparents. My audience, of course, is African Americans because that is the focus of the book. I do feel though that the book holds universal truths about the environment that anyone around the globe can relate to. For example, somehow someway we all go back to agriculture even if we trace back to the pre-history of the dawn of humankind in the cradle of civilization we call Africa.

I also owe so much to the internet community who have taken me in and embraced me through my blogging and the upcoming book. I have known Frank Peterman and Audrey Peterman, co-authors of Legacy on the Land: A Black Couple Discovers Our National Inheritance and Tells Why Every American Should Care for several years as part of the world of diversity and the environment. I met Evonne Blythers through Keeping it Wild about the same time I learned about the Petermans.  I was able to reconnect with all of them. Rue Mapp and Jarid Manos, new friends, keep in touch online, share about my work, and call me regularly to check-in on me. I am also glad to have gotten to know Dudley Edmondson who wrote Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places.

There are so many others to recognize,  including Rona Fernandez who blogs at Brown Girl Going Green. I think Rona reads all my blog posts! Mayra McQuirter another one of the first people to find my blog and was quick to write about the book. And Danielle N. Lee invited me to do my first blog carnival; what an experience! I think that starting the blog back in January 2010 really helped me to view the environment in new ways. It keyed me into the many perspectives that make up the whole, and also connected me with the little, yet important things around me, like slugs and birds. Through my blog, I also get to tap into my love of popular culture and reflect on movies and books. I hope I have given people something to think about through the blog and later the book. For me the experience has given me more opportunities to connect to people and nature. For that, I am grateful.

Purchase Dianne’s book at your local independent bookstore or on Amazon today!

Writer Stephanie Ogburn captured the fun spirit of a recent birdwatching event, situated in a stretch of shoreline that borders an industrial zone and a large community of color in Oakland, California. The event was a collaborative effort between Outdoor Afro and Golden Gate Audubon of the San Francisco Bay Area. Most participants were first-time birders, and left the trip inspired to learn more about the birds and other wildlife found right in their own backyard. The full article is available for paid subscribers online or in print via retail outlets, but here is a sneak peak!

Courtesy of the Friends of the Regional Park

A botanic garden is a terrific place to go for an easy refuge from nearby urban spaces, and a chance to visualize the diversity and importance of plants in a natural environment.

Spanning ten acres, the Tilden Park Botanical Garden was designed in the 1940’s as a preservation area, and showcase of California plants including rare and endangered grasses, shrubs, trees, and flowers. The area features a year-round creek that runs through the gently sloping site into a cool rainforest preserve with several grassy enclaves for picnicking or quiet meditation. And for those who want to learn about the wide array of plants, many species are labeled by name and region.

According the garden’s website, it includes “nearly all of California’s conifers and oaks as well as collections of California manzanitas wild lilacs, grasses, aquatic plants, and flowering bulbs that are among the most complete to be found anywhere.” A visit here is indeed a virtual tour of the Golden State.

But did you know that botanical gardens are found near or within urban centers all over the country?

Billy Discovers the Creek

Here is a website that lists the best botanical gardens across the United States.

What is your favorite Botanical Garden? What do you like to do there?

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the  Bay Area Open Space Council Conference organized by Breaking the Color Barrier alumna and Executive Director Bettina Ring to celebrate and reflect on 20 years of conservation in the Bay Area and beyond. At the capacity filled event in the beautiful Presidio Club House was a dynamic mix of individuals and organizations who shared a range of data and stories: from the good news of how the San Francisco Bay Area has benefited from preserving its open spaces, to the sobering reality of childhood obesity and other health problems plaguing urban youth today because of a lack of connection to the spaces in their own neighborhood.

Thus, the conference represented a thoughtful look back at battles won and lost, but also a look forward to what is possible through fostering new collaborations that stretch beyond business as usual. Over the course of the day, we consistently heard the message of how engaging underserved and diverse communities is no longer an option, but intrinsic to the ecological survival of all, echoing what is commonly known about the benefits of plant and wildlife diversity. Therefore this conference underscored a necessary shift from simply preserving acres to preserving the people who live on them.

Elizabeth Goldstein, President of the California State Parks Foundation shared compelling California State Parks data that proves that people care about their local parks “no matter their financial circumstances, background, or where they live,” she said. The across-the-board support of the upcoming ballot measure that begins to address a decade of repair and maintenance backlogs and threats of park closures proves this.

The health benefits of outdoor engagement were also highlighted by Daphne Miller, MD, who shared that in addition to the known physical health benefits, there are some in the medical community who believe that time spent in outdoor spaces is beneficial for those suffering from depression, starting with just five-minutes a day outside.

Also in the building were Outdoor Afro favorites Dr. Carolyn Finney of UC Berkeley, who moderated a dynamic panel of youngish adults, like Ernesto Pepito from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, regarding the cross generation challenges and potential for collaboration, and Hazel Wong of The Nature Conservancy, who shared how the ballot is a powerful conduit to land, wildlife, and water protection.

New friend Laurie Schoeman also passionately related her experiences on the front line of the financial, environmental, and demographic hardships facing Bay View Hunter’s Point residents in San Francisco. Her silver lining is the recent opening of a green, community staffed EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park that came into fruition in spite of debilitating state funding obstacles.

Other conference highlights included a touching video retrospective of the Bay Area conservation movement, Golden Gate National Recreation Area Superintendent Brian O’Neill (1941-2009) and Conservation Legend Edward Wayburn, narrated by Doug McConnell of Bay Area Back Roads. A concluding poetry reading by Poet Laureate Robert Hass wowed the crowd with poems authored by children. Those poems proved to us all how powerfully youth connect to natural spaces when given a chance.

Overall, the conference was profoundly engaging, bringing together friends old and new.  I was delighted to hear throughout the day an echo of the message heard in Washington DC last month: connection and engagement with natural spaces is for everyone — and I am looking forward to seeing and taking part in next steps to make this vision a reality.

Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama took a hike yesterday as part of their romantic getaway in the Ashville, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Parkway area that included dining and golf.  Read about one woman’s chance encounter. They are setting a terrific example of outdoor engagement in America’s natural spaces for everyone.

Thanks Outdoor Afro Dustin Weeks for sharing!

“Green is Good for the Hood” was this year’s theme, which was intended to create local awareness and a response to environmental concerns at a neighborhood level.

The event started with a rally to highlight environmental and health issues in Oakland at Tassafaronga Recreation Center, followed by a parade with Scraper Bikers, drummers, and youth dancing. In the afternoon, there was a health fair, vendors, youth performances, basketball tournament, and more at ACORN Woodland Elementary.

It was a privilege for Outdoor Afro to connect directly with its targeted demographic of adults and children. KIND generously donated bars and the local Berkeley REI pitched in a display tent we filled with the bars and Outdoor Afro stickers — a real hit and ice breaker that got the kids talking about camping.

Most importantly, there were many breakthrough conversations at the table that helped parents, grandparents, and children imagine new ways to interact with their local outdoor spaces.

“I don’t like bugs!” was a frequent comment that opened up discussions about biking or bird watching as other recreational activities to engage with the outdoors with perhaps fewer crawling critters! And I was able to share information about some of my local program partners, such as Feather River Family Camp, and Golden Gate Audubon Society to plug families into affordable activities right in their own back yard.

Click to learn more about the fabulous work of  Communities for a Better Environment.

Happy Earth Week!

Last Thursday night was the  pre-conference mixer at the Department of Agriculture, where we heard from the Department of the Interior (Ken Salazar), Department of Agriculture (Tom Vilsack), Council on Environmental Quality (Nancy Sutley), and the Environmental Protection Agency (Lisa Jackson). Following a brief program, participants had the opportunity to pre-register for the conference and network among environmental, recreational, retail, and government related leadership from all over the United States.

A highlight of the trip was reconnecting with the historic Breaking the Color Barrier Conference alumni, a subset of a larger group of individuals who represent organizations that work year-round to connect the outdoors to underrepresented communities of color.

Breaking the Color Barrier Alumni

The following Friday morning conference program was held at the Department of the Interior and well orchestrated for both attendees and television audiences, with more networking opportunities.

President Obama, who stood mere feet from where I was seated, impressed upon us in his speech that reconnecting all Americans to the outdoors  honors our collective national heritage. The President said “few pursuits are more satisfying to the spirit than discovering the greatness of America’s outdoors,” which referenced his personal family value of outdoor recreation.

We heard from panelists ranging from the federal government to state leadership, such as New Mexico Governer Bill Richardson; key local influencers such as Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, and Ernesto Pepito, Youth Program Director of Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

The single most poignant message to emerge from these talks was the imperative to connect urban, underrepresented communities and youth to the outdoors.  Pepito, a young Latino male,  remarked in his panel that youth need to be represented at the table in leadership talks such as these, and also be  introduced to conservation career pathways versus one-time volunteer opportunities. And Gov. Bill Richardson underscored the need for more people of color to be reached, especially in light of America’s changing demographics.

After the morning talks from the stage, participants met in smaller groups to discuss in greater detail the most pressing challenges and share solutions — and senior White House staff was on hand to take notes.

Breakout Session (Photo: Queen Quet)

This conference was just the beginning, and as it concluded, many of us felt a tremendous boost of hope and inspiration for the work we already do that is now supported and made visible in a new national agenda. And we learned that in the months ahead, members of this administration will host regional listening sessions across America.  They will meet with everyone from tribal leaders to farmers, from young people to businesspeople, from elected officials to recreation and conservation groups.

“And the ideas from these meetings will help form a 21st century strategy for America’s great outdoors to better protect our natural landscape and our history for generations to come, ” said President Obama.

Outdoor Afro was honored to be at the table for these inspired and ground-breaking conversations that will result in more Americans discovering a deeper connection to the outdoors, and ultimately to themselves.

The Obama Administration is recognizing the importance of the outdoors to people’s health and well-being, with two important new programs: The White House Conference on America’s Great Outdoors and First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to eradicate childhood obesity.

The White House Conference on America’s Great Outdoors will be held Friday, April 16. C&NN President Cheryl Charles, C&NN Associate Rue Mapp (Outdoor Afro) and other movement leadership will be in attendance. President Obama is scheduled to deliver remarks to the group. The conference will be led by Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. The conference will address the challenges, opportunities and innovations surrounding modern-day land conservation and the importance of reconnecting Americans and American families to the outdoors.

“America’s outdoors are part of our national identity. They are the farms, ranches and forests that we take great pride in, and the neighborhood parks, trails and fields where we spend memorable time with our families and friends,” said Chair Sutley.

“Across the country, Americans are working to protect the places they know and love, from the streams they fished as children and the parks where families gather together to the battlefields and buildings that tell America’s story,” said Secretary Salazar.

The conference will bring together leaders from communities across the country that are working to protect their outdoor spaces. Participants will include working ranchers and farmers, sportsmen and women, State and local government leaders, Tribal leaders, public lands experts, conservationists, youth leaders, business representatives and others who view the outdoors as integral to their communities.

Secretary Salazar will lead an afternoon panel, Connecting People to our Lands, Water and Wildlife, which will include New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and REI C.E.O. Sally Jewell, among others.

C&NN will be blogging about the conference as it happens, so be sure to follow along. The Let’s Move campaign will be featured in the next brief.

About the Author

Suz Lipman has more than 25 years experience as a writer, editor, social media manager, community builder, and advocate for getting children into nature.