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The Blind Life Podcast
Birding by Ear: All About Blind Birding And The Annual Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon! Ep 50
00:16:38
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, guys, it's Sam with the Blind Life. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today we're going to be talking about birding in the blind community. My guest, Jerry, Jerry Barrier. He is a an avid birder in the community. And we're going to be talking about exactly what that even is. What is birding? Why is it so prolific in the blind and visually impaired community? Why you might be interested in joining the movement and also talking about an upcoming event that might be a good way to get started, get your feet wet in the birding world. Jerry, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
- [00:40]
B
Thank you, Sam.
- [00:42]
A
So tell us a little bit at first, what is birding? If somebody has no idea what that even means, can you kind of give an overall explanation?
- [00:51]
B
Well, my phone, every time I dictate to it and say birding, it always wants to call it burning, which is not related. But birding is what used to be called bird watching. And bird watching is a misnomer because most people who are really good birders hear more birds than they see. Because especially in the summer when the leaves are all out and everything, you can't always see the birds up in the trees, but you can hear them. So birding is simply studying and paying attention to the birds and being aware of them. And for me, it just has been an enjoyable hobby since I started in 1972. I was in college and I had to take a biology course, even though I was a psych major and my professor didn't quite know what to do with me during the lab portion. They were going to be doing some cutting animals up, that sort of thing. So he suggested that he let me borrow his Cornell University Long Play record albums, which is what they were back then. And he said, I'm going to have you listen to them during the semester, and at the end, you and I are going to go for a walk in the woods. And your lab grade is going to be dependent on how well you can identify some of these birds. And I was totally overwhelmed at first, but I stuck with it and have been doing it ever since. And that was, like I said, 1972.
- [02:20]
A
Correct me if I'm wrong, but some people, they go out with a goal like to document and almost like a scavenger hunt, how many species can you identify in your area and document it? Right?
- [02:34]
B
Yeah, I'm not so much like that. I think I'm a rather casual birder. I like recording bird sounds. And my birding activities have spawned a lot of other things that I do, such as audio editing and website work. I have my own website@birdblind.org and birds are one of many things I have on there. But I have some old recordings that I made way back in the. Probably the 90s or even before. And I started recording birds as soon as I got involved in birding. I had an old. This big, heavy cassette recorder that ran on D batteries, and I would hold that up over my head because it had a microphone on it, and I would record the birds and then trying to figure out what they were. That was the toughest part because at that time, all I had were those records to go by and. But things have improved a lot since then. And so I have. It has really. It has opened up the world to me and gotten me involved in learning a lot of different things.
- [03:35]
A
Well, and then not only that, but the, you know, I'm sure it's great exercise. You're getting out there. You're. You're getting some activity going.
- [03:42]
B
It is.
- [03:42]
A
Yeah. And I would. I would definitely echo the point that the blind community, we're probably the best at this activity because we, you know, we. We're so attuned with our hearing. And I've made videos before on my channel about simply just walking outside and just standing there and listening and how much you can pick up the world around you just by the sounds of.
- [04:08]
B
Yeah, I think that's true. Although I have to admit, as I get older, I find that I don't remember them as well as I used to.
- [04:15]
A
Wow, that's a different. Yeah, we can relate to that too well. And luckily you don't have to, because now we have the modern technology. We're not holding the giant recorders up over our heads anymore. Because I also heard that there is a really, really good app that you guys are using to help with this. Can you tell us more about that?
- [04:37]
B
I'll be happy to. There are a couple of apps that I use. The one for identifying birds is called Merlin. That's M E R L I N Merlin Bird id. It's available as an iPhone app and also on Android. And it's. It. Will people use it visually to identify birds? They can. They can bring up a picture quickly of a. A species that they think they're seeing in the field and determine whether it's the same thing. But there is a microphone button, at least that's what Voiceover calls it. And if you press that button and hold your phone up, it will identify at a. At an accuracy rate of at least 90 maybe 95%. It will tell you what the bird is that you're hearing. And I will tell you that for a person using voiceover, there are a few tricks you have to use. One, the sound of voiceover goes way down low when you open up the microphone in Merlin because Merlin thinks that it needs to cancel out other sounds so that it can hear the bird. But if you hold the phone up to your ear or if you use a wired headset, then you can hear it clearly. Does not work with bluetooth headsets though, as far as that's been my experience anyway. But I love Merlin bird ID and so do thousands and thousands of other birders. A lot of people use it, you know, as long as I've been birding and I'm, you know, fairly good at it. But there's not a day that I don't go out there and I think, gosh, wonder what that bird is because they make different sounds and they don't always make the same ones. And you know, it's, it can be very confusing at times. For example, I heard a bird that I thought was a red tailed hawk in my yard recently and it kept calling over and over. But I noticed that all the birds, the other birds were still carrying on and singing and going about their business and they didn't seem to be very concerned about it. And I eventually discovered it was a blue jay that was making that sound and it was a pretty good imitation. And some people believe that blue jays will do that to scare the other birds away from the feeder so that the blue jay has full access to it. I don't know whether that's true or not, but a lot of birds do mimic each other.
- [06:56]
A
That's funny. Blue jays are the jerks of the bird world, just trying to scare everybody away. But I know that and I know that some birds have multiple different calls, you know, for different situations. And so it can be kind of tough. The only one that I am certain of is I live in central Kentucky. We have cardinals, although, you know, it's the state bird of like almost every state. So I'm sure every state has cardinals. But they're, they're super easy to recognize because they sound like a laser gun being fired. What I always think of when I hear a cardinal. So that's cool. I need to check out the app. I remember several years ago I saw some, some video where a person went out in their backyard and they were playing recordings of birds songs and it was bringing the birds in and that was like, that sounds so cool. It's like. It's like Dr. Dolittle here. You're controlling the bird like Snow White. You know, all the birds come and land on your shoulders and stuff, so. But that would be super cool to be able to identify the calls while you're out and about.
- [07:57]
B
Merlin's one. The other one is for learning bird sounds. And that one is called Larkwire. It's one word. L, A, R, K, W, I, R, E. It's also a mobile app and you can let it know what habitat you want to study in what part of the country or the world. And it has different audio packs that you can download into it, but it will test you. It'll play a sound and you either have to say, I know it by hitting a button or not. Sure. And if you say I know it, and then it says, okay, it's this, and it turns out it's not the bird you thought it was, you're on your honor to say wrong, and there's a wrong button. It'll keep bringing that bird into the mix until you get it right a few times. And I've used that extensively to try and learn, especially some of the warblers that I only hear in the spring and early summer. And so it's kind of hard to remember them all.
- [08:50]
A
Yeah, that's great. It kind of. It kind of gamifies. It makes it a little bit challenging. Nice. So if anybody is interested in getting started in this activity, you have an event coming up that might be good for them. You want to tell us a little bit about that?
- [09:05]
B
I certainly do. We have an event that is called the second annual Blind Birder Birdathon. That's a mouthful. But it is an event. It's going to take take place on two days, May 3, which is a Sunday, and May 4, which is a Monday. And we're inviting people who are blind or low vision, actually all over the world. It's a global event and we do have people in several other countries that are going to participate, but we invite them to simply go out and spend at least two hours outside birding. You can bird in your own yard. People are asked to either go solo or go in a group. Some groups will have sighted volunteers assisting them, others won't. I know there was a time when I had a guide dog and lived in a rather rural area and I could go out and walk for hours with my dog and do all the birding I wanted to without any assistance. But now I live in a very urban area, so that's not so possible. But this birdathon, you can find out about it and register@birdability.org and I want to talk a little bit about birdability. It is one of my favorite organizations. It is a nonprofit that is in business to promote birding among people of all abilities, including disabilities and health concerns and that sort of thing. We think that birding can bring joy into your life regardless of what your situation is. And birdability.org is the website. If you go on there, the very first link at the top of the page says blind Birder Birdathon. If you go on there, there's a very simple accessible registration form that you can fill out. And we're even going to have prizes. It's not competitive. We will have random drawings from among those who have registered after the birding event. And some of the prizes are pretty good. I mean, one of them I know is a whole bunch of shade ground coffee, like six different kinds, I think, and some bird feeders and all kinds of things related to birding, clothing, all sorts of things. And this is a free event. We think that people who are blind can just derive an awful lot of fun and joy and excitement from this hobby of birding, as I have. And it really has been life changing for me. I'm much more aware of the environment I'm in. I'm aware of the seasons, the time changes, the light and dark cycles, even though I can't see it. But I'm aware of all of that because of the birds. And it makes me want to go places and do things, which is a beautiful thing. So the birdathon is, as I said, a two day event. You only have to participate on one day. There is a report form that we're going to be sending out to people who register and I'm going to be tabulating all the results as I did last year. All we care about is what species did you identify? It's okay to use Merlin, you know, you don't know, you're not on your own. If you're brand new to birding, you can take Merlin with you and find a whole bunch of birds and identify them. If you're with other people, if a sighted person sees the bird but it's not making any noise and no blind person in the group can see it, then that bird can't be counted. The focus is really on people who are blind and low vision. So that's what it is. And birdability. I just want to say a few more words about them. They have been so helpful to us. In making this happen because we've used their website, they've created forms for us that can be used by the people in the birdathon, and they've done all kinds of other things. They've been with us every step of the way right from the beginning when Martha Steele came up with the idea that she thought we ought to have a birdathon, and she contacted me. And then we got in contact with a woman in Michigan named Donna Pozant. And Donna teaches a course in birding by ear, and she got interested, and then I was already a member of birdability, so I reached out to Kat Fribley, who is the executive director of birdability. It is a small nonprofit organization worthy of lots of donations. If you have money to spare and would like to make a donation, they really do a lot of good. They've created a map of accessible birding spots for people with mobility disabilities, and they can actually see what the accessibility features are on some of the various birding trails around the country. And they've. They've gotten people together in many ways and have just been a. Just a beautiful organization. I've never been involved with something that I was so excited about as I am with birdability. So I hope everybody will check out their website. Not just the blind bird link, but the whole website. There's a lot of good stuff on there.
- [14:13]
A
Well, that's awesome. Yeah, definitely. Guys, check them out. I'm really excited about this. As I sit here in my studio, I can hear the birds singing out the window here. And I'm going to download the apps and find out what kind of birds I've got in my neighborhood. And like I said, it just. It gets you out in nature. You get some fresh air, you spend time with your family and your friends and just doing some good, wholesome, fun stuff.
- [14:40]
B
I would like to tell you about another aspect of my birding, which is how I record them. My audio editing program is one you've probably heard of called Reaper. And a lot of blind people use that. It's a very complex program, but it's also very accessible. And in recent years, some relatively inexpensive, very portable, small handheld recorders have become available from a company called Zoom Corporation. Not the same thing as the Zoom that we use sometimes for meetings, but the Zoom Corporation made it their business several years ago to start making a series of recorders that were totally blind friendly. They have talking menus. They use something called 32 bit float recording resolution, which enables you to record without worrying too much of where you've got your microphone volume set. You can make it louder or softer in post production, and they're almost foolproof. I mean, they're not perfect, but they are much better than anything that had been available before that. So if you're into recording, birding is a wonderful hobby to get involved in.
- [15:55]
A
Well, I think this is great information, Jerry. I really appreciate it. So everybody, I will have links in the video description or the the podcast show notes, birdability.org the website where you can find out more about birding in general. You'll also be able to find a link there to the Blind Birding Birdathon event that we've got going on May 3rd and May 4th of this year. I will, of course, have a direct link to that as well if you'd like to participate in that. Sounds like a lot of fun, Jerry. Thank you so much. I really appreciate providing all this great information.
- [16:29]
B
You're welcome. And thank you.
- [16:31]
A
Sam and I will see you out there in the woods.
- [16:35]
B
All right.