Support Team Nuthatch! (Copy)

New Jersey Audubon’s World Series of Birding began in 1984. Teams compete in a Big Day-type event, raising money to support conservation. May 14, 2022 will be the first time a team made up entirely of birders with access challenges will compete: Birdability’s Team Nuthatch! Help us break barriers, provide much-need representation, and help ensure that birding truly is for everybody and every body!

Get involved by donating or pledging to donate. We are aiming to raise $10,000 to continue to support our network of volunteers around the US who are working to ensure that birding truly is for every body in their local communities. This includes developing more freely available resources which will be available here on birdability.org for anybody to access, share and reference. These tools are used by our volunteers, nature centers, bird clubs, state parks, Audubon chapters and disability organizations to create accessible, inclusive birding opportunities — explore our Guidance Documents to see what is already available.

With your help we can ensure that birding is for every body!

Pledge or donate to support Team Nuthatch!

If you’d like to donate today, you can do so electronically or find information on where to send a check on our Donate page. Please select ‘Support Birdability at World Series of Birding’ in the dropdown menu. If you’d rather make a pledge to donate based on the number of species heard or seen after the event is over, please complete the form on this page. Thank you for your support!

Jerry Berrier (he/him) has been totally blind from birth. He has been birding by ear since 1972, and recently retired as Director of Assistive Technology for the Perkins School for the Blind. He has served as an accessibility consultant with Mass Audubon on more than a dozen All Persons Trails projects, and has conducted numerous birding by ear workshops for adults and children who are blind. He enjoys meeting other birders, walking in the woods and fields, and just being outdoors, especially in warm spring weather. He also likes recording bird sounds and adding them to his website birdblind.org

Michael Hurben (he/him) was innocently completing his physics doctorate when the appearance of a Northern Flicker sparked a sudden, inexplicable obsession with birds. He would soon meet Claire, a wildlife biologist who would become his wife and birding partner. They have lived across North America and in Southeast Asia in order to feed their avian fever; presently they live in Bloomington, Minnesota. Shortly after discovering birds, Michael’s eyesight began to fail due to retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive genetic disease that destroys night and peripheral vision. He is legally blind but very fortunate to have the central 2% of his visual field intact. A life goal is to triumph over his disability by identifying at least half (5,500) of the world’s bird species by sight or by ear — he has less than a thousand to go. Keep up with his adventures at legallyblindbirding.net or on Instagram @birdingdespitedisability

Meghadeepa Maity (they/them) continually navigates the challenges of exploring the outdoors as a neurodivergent, Bengali, immigrant, queer woman and a trauma survivor with multiple invisible disabilities (complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a Traumatic Brain Injury, chronic migraines and visual processing disorders). They have increasingly had to reduce their reliance on optics for bird identification, which has considerably sharpened a different set of observation skills. They have always wanted to do a Big Day, but they have never felt able to keep up in traditional birding spaces, or felt safe enough to push their body that far. They are thrilled to be on Team Nuthatch where accessibility will be paramount and where they can play to their strengths. Follow their adventures on Instagram @meghadeepa.m

Freya McGregor (she/her) is the Birdability Coordinator and Occupational Therapist, where she is responsible for resource creation, programming, communications and fundraising. Birding since childhood, her ‘dodgy’ knee often creates an accessibility challenge for her. Her favorite birds are Rainbow Lorikeets and Wedge-tailed Eagles (she’s originally from Australia), and Canyon Wrens and Swallow-tail Kites. In her spare time she works as the Outreach Coordinator for Talkin’ Birds: a radio show and podcast about birds and conservation, and writes about inclusion, accessibility, disability and birding. She is passionate about enabling everybody to enjoy birds and nature as much as she does. You can follow her on Instagram @the.ot.birder

Nicole Neigel (she/her) is autistic and struggles with Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and an undiagnosed illness. She works as an educator and bird rehabber at a nature center, where she advocates to make her workplace and their programs more accessible for everybody. Her birding experience is impacted by her disabilities because severe pain and illness means she is often only capable of stationary birding, and being autistic brings both many challenges and strengths including auditory and visual processing disorders. She is looking forward to raising awareness and money for Birdability on Team Nuthatch! Follow her adventures and learn more about being an autistic birder on Instagram @theautisticnaturalist

Virginia Rose (she/her) is the founder of Birdability. She fell off a horse at the age of 14 which resulted in a spinal cord injury. A wheelchair user ever since, she began birding 20 years ago and discovered her best self in nature. Her desire to share the many joys of birding with more people — especially the empowerment that can come from being unattended in nature — is what sparked Birdability. She leads accessible outings in Austin, Texas, and loves the feeling of coming home exhausted, satisfied, elated and with newfound confidence after going birding on her own.