Diversity and the Future of Birding, part 2

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: A few days ago (August 24) I wrote about the lack of diversity in the birdwatching community. This issue has bugged me for some time, but on the other hand, I’m encouraged to know some individuals who are actively doing something about it.

John C. Robinson has been a friend for several years. We had corresponded before we met, so I knew he was an expert birder before I knew he was African-American. John has been a writer and consultant on a number of topics, but with his status as a black bird expert, it was perhaps only natural that he would become a spokesperson on the issue of diversity in birding and outdoor recreation. At a conservation summit before the Midwest Birding Symposium in 2003, I heard John speak on this subject, and he was very persuasive and compelling. More recently he has published a book that addresses the same issue, Birding for Everyone: Encouraging People of Color to Become Birdwatchers. It’s a thought-provoking work that offers some real solutions.

More than a decade ago I was already an admirer of Dudley Edmondson’s spectacular nature photography, especially of the birds of prey. Indeed, I arranged to use some of his images in my Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America, published nine years ago. Later I found out that this very successful professional nature photographer also was African-American, and had begun to turn his camera toward human subjects as well. He felt that the lack of diversity in the outdoors was partly because people of color didn’t see role models taking part in birdwatching and other outdoor activities, so Dudley has made a point of finding, photographing, and interviewing the exceptions. One result of this work is his fine book, Black and Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places, which is accomplishing great things by highlighting a diverse set of "outdoor role models."

These two guys are both dedicated to this cause of increasing diversity in the field. Here’s just one random piece of evidence: when I was struggling to get my North American bird guide translated into Spanish and then published, John Robinson and Dudley Edmondson were both very encouraging. I hadn’t even met Dudley at that point, but as soon as he heard about the project, he called me up to offer moral support.

Speaking of the Spanish-language bird guide, another person who is doing great things for outdoors diversity is Tamberly Conway, at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. She has been working with the U.S. Forest Service in Texas to promote a program called "Latino Legacy: Amigos del Bosque" (Friends of the Forest). This innovative program has had great success in reaching out to the Hispanic community and getting families to connect with nature on National Forest lands. We haven’t met her yet, but she and her colleague Maricruz Flores, one of the team leaders for Amigos del Bosque, will be coming to Ohio - - along with John Robinson and Dudley Edmondson - - to speak at our conference, Diversity in Outdoor Recreation: The Many Faces of Conservation, September 26 in Toledo. You can read all about that event on the Black Swamp Bird Observatory website here.

Viva la Guia, Indeed! BEWARE--This gets kinda mushy!

Kim Writes: When Kenn and I first started getting acquainted, it was a loooong distance relationship that took place almost entirely by phone. He was still in Tucson, Arizona, and I was in Carey, Ohio.

I still remember the very first words he said to me when I finally got up the nerve to call him on the phone. In a very deep (and very sexy) voice he said, simply ~ “This is Kenn.” It took me a couple of seconds to recover and respond because my heart was saying, "This is the love of your life!" I love it when my heart's right!!

After the initial “wow moment” our conversations deepened, and we shared things with each other that we’d never shared with another soul. I was totally in love with him after the first two or three conversations---and then he told me about the Guia! He was fighting to get it published and facing some pretty serious adversity. The costs were mounting, and he sounded determined, but battle weary. I was incredibly moved by his vision and dedication (fueled by stubbornness) and I gave him every bit of positive energy I had and expressed my total -- all out belief in this book and what it could do! Well, obviously Kenn and good prevailed, the Guia became a reality, and I fell completely in love with this amazing man!

Inspired by an idea "borrowed" from Tucson Audubon, I developed a Guia donor program through the Observatory. BSBO purchases copies of the book from the publisher at a special rate. People "purchase" a book at a special donor rate of $12, sign a name plate identifying them as the donor, and BSBO ships the books off to several partners across the U.S. and Mexico to be used in programs that reach out to our Latin American brothers and sisters. The whole idea is that if we can create awareness and appreciation for birds among this huge audience, it's that much more support for conservation. You can learn more about the program--and donate a book!--through the BSBO website.

One of our biggest partners is the Sonoran Joint Venture. Through their Education and Outreach Coordinator, Jennie Duberstein, we have arranged for hundreds of donated books to be shipped to SJV. SJV has offered a number of training workshops over the past few years, focusing on topics such as how to be a bird guide, basic bird identification, and bird monitoring. The following is an excerpt from an article written by Jennie for our Observatory newsletter. Jennie writes: Initially we went to these workshops armed with a stack of ten copies of the English version of the Kaufman Guide to the Birds of North America (generously donated by the Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Company), a hodge-podge of other English language North American field guides, and a handful of donated pairs of binoculars of varying quality.

Although having field guides in English made it challenging, workshop participants still gained basic skills in how to use a field guide and binoculars to identify and monitor birds. But when you don't have your own field guide or binoculars, it makes it very difficult to put your new skills to use.

The publication of the Kaufman Guía de Campo a las Aves de Norteamérica has provided the SJV (and Spanish-speakers everywhere) with a fabulous new tool. Participants in our workshops are now able to not only look at the pictures in a field guide, but read about habitat, behavior, diet, and other important life history information about birds. And thanks to the generous donations of members and supporters of Black Swamp Bird Observatory, the SJV has been able to provide each workshop participant with his or her own copy of the Guía.

How cool is that?!! I feel so blessed and so honored to play a small role in getting the Guia out there and into the hands of people who might just change the world.

To date, more than 500 copies of the book have been donated! 500 copies!! A huge thank you to Kenn, Jennie D, Black Swamp Bird Observatory, Tucson Audubon, and all of the donors who believed in this book and its potential enough to be a part of our mission!

Viva la Guia

From Cloud Nine over Ohio, Kenn writes: Lisa White, my editor for the last several years at my publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, e-mailed me a short while ago with some very good news.

First, some background. From the time my field guide to North American birds was published, in October 2000, I had this ambition to bring out a version of the book in Spanish. I'd been living in Arizona, traveling a lot in California and Texas and Florida, and I knew that I heard a lot of Spanish being spoken on the street. The latest census figures at the time showed that something like 28 million U.S. citizens spoke Spanish at home. Of course, I knew that most of those individuals were bilingual, and could use an English-language bird guide if they really wanted to. But my whole aim was to get more people interested in birds. So I figured, why not give them a bird guide written in the language in which they were most comfortable?

The opportunity came a few years later. The publisher decided to change the cover design of the book (the first edition had had a Scarlet Tanager on the cover), and they gave me the opportunity to make changes to the interior of the book as well. Since they were having to reprint it anyway, they gave me the go-ahead to get the book translated into Spanish, to bring that edition out at the same time as the new English printing.

It was, I admit, a time-consuming and expensive project. I found a great translator, Patricia Manzano Fischer, who works on bird conservation in Mexico. We enlisted great help from the Mexican ornithologist Hector Gomez de Silva. Still, I had to edit all the Spanish text to fit the page layout, and I put up the money to pay for the translation myself. I definitely lost a lot of money on this project, but I wasn't trying to make a profit, I was trying to make a difference. And we've had some great feedback from the border regions and from northern Mexico, indicating that thousands of people are actually using the book and getting a lot out of it: students, biologists, park rangers, naturalists, teachers. At least in some measure, the Guia de campo Kaufman a las aves de norteamerica is achieving its goal of bringing more people into an appreciation of birds.

The first printing came out in 2005 and has been selling slowly and steadily since. What Lisa White told me today is that this book, this Spanish-language bird guide, is about to go back for a second printing. Right now the economic climate is really tough for publishers, and it means a lot to me to know that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt believes in this book enough to invest in another printing.