Cat Fribley

This blog explores how accessibility in birding begins not only with physical spaces but with the words we use to describe them. While barriers like steep trails or lack of seating may be visible, many people encounter uncertainty much earlier when event descriptions lack clear, specific access information. Thoughtful, detailed language helps people with disabilities and other health concerns understand what to expect and decide whether an experience works for them. We reflect on how language shapes belonging, from avoiding limiting or outdated terms to expanding our understanding of what birding can mean. Rather than focusing on getting every word “right,” the invitation is to listen, stay open to learning, and use language as an ongoing practice of care that helps more people feel welcomed into the birding community.

There is a particular kind of anticipation that builds when migration is happening and birds are on the move. The days get longer here in the northern hemisphere, the soundscape shifts, and if you listen closely, you can literally hear the birds coming.

We are just weeks away from the 2nd Annual Global Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon, happening May 3 and 4, 2026. What we are hearing already is not just birdsong, though! It is community and preparation, and even belonging taking shape.

This event was created by and for blind and low vision birders, and it continues to grow into something both beautifully simple and deeply powerful. The bird-a-thon is a reminder that birding is not just something we see, but also something we hear. And when we are at our best, it’s also something we feel and something we share.

In the United States, 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. For many of us, that means cancer is not an abstract statistic. It is something that touches our families, our friends, and often our own lives.

In a new blog post, Birdability board member Julie Euber shares her personal story of receiving a breast cancer diagnosis and navigating chemotherapy, uncertainty, and recovery. Along the way, birds remained a steady presence. Sometimes that meant sitting quietly on a porch watching visitors at a feeder. Other times it meant resting at a picnic table with a friend and watching the antics of a Cooper’s Hawk. What this story reminds us is something we talk about often at Birdability. Birding does not have to look one way. It can happen from a backyard chair, a paved path, a balcony, or a quiet moment outside when energy and stamina are limited.

As 2025 comes to a close, many of our conversations with Birdability Captains and our broader Birdability community have focused on reflecting on the last year and what comes next. These conversations were with people doing the day-to-day work of access and inclusion in their own communities. Across year-end meetings and discussions, the same ideas came up again and again. Birdability is about community and shared action for accessibility. Throughout 2025, we saw astonishing growth in interesting places.

Applications will open soon for the third year of the Let’s Go Birding Internship, formerly known as the Birdability Internship. As we prepare to welcome a new cohort of interns for spring/summer 2026, we are taking a moment to celebrate what this program has already made possible and the people who have shaped it with care, creativity, and deep commitment to access. Developed in partnership with Environment for the Americas and the National Park Service, Let’s Go Birding is rooted in the idea that birding and national parks should be accessible to everyone, including disabled people and folks with other health concerns.

Everyone deserves a way into the story of birds. Not simply the chance to identify a species, but the chance to feel what Andrew J. Lewis describes so clearly in this piece we are reprinting below. A shift in attention or a deeper form of listening or even a sense of belonging that does not depend on eyesight or mobility or any single way of taking in the world. This essay, first published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and generously shared here with permission from them and the author, speaks directly to the heart of our Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon Community Conversations and to the many ways people with disabilities and other health concerns build their own pathways to joy in nature.

The Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon reminds us that birding by ear is its own skill, art, and door to community. It is a world shaped by listening, shared learning, and the kind of connection that grows when people come together to practice new skills and celebrate the sounds of birds and nature. As we plan for the 2026 Global Blind Birders Bird-a-Thon, we are gathering each month for Blind Birder Community Conversations. These sessions are open, welcoming, and designed by and for blind and low vision birders, with sighted allies welcome to join us in support of a more accessible birding world.

Birdability Week 2025 once again brought together birders of all experiences, perspectives, and abilities to celebrate the joy, humor, and resilience that make birding such a wonderfully human (and often hilarious) pursuit. Now in its second year, the Offbeat Photo and Video Contest expanded to include video entries, and the results did not disappoint. From midair misfires to remarkable moments of adaptation, this year’s entries proved that the best (bird) stories are sometimes the most imperfect ones.

Between October 24 and 26, more than seventy accessible and inclusive birding events will take place across the United States under the banner of Bird(ability) Your Way Weekend, part of the fifth annual Birdability Week,  and organized by more than 60 partners across the country and beyond. The celebration invites people to experience birds – and community – in whatever ways are most accessible to them.

Get ready for it, friends  – the 2nd Annual Global Blind Birders Bird-a-Thon is happening Sunday, May 3, and Monday, May 4, 2026, and you’re invited to join from wherever you are in the world. Birders with blindness or low vision everywhere can register on the Birdability site to learn more as we get closer to a chance to take part in this joyful celebration of sound, skill, and community, as well as a new offering, Blind Birders Community Conversations, that will happen starting in November 2025.