Annaliese Meistrich, ASNV intern
“Birding is for everybody, and every body!” This is the motto of Birdability, a growing global effort that works to decrease barriers for birders with mobility, vision, developmental, hearing, and other health challenges. The organization, and the movement it inspired, hope to eliminate many of the accessibility challenges that these birders face on a regular basis in order to share the joys of birding with them. The founder, Virginia Rose, a board member of Travis Audubon in Texas, had fallen at a young age and now uses a wheelchair. She found a passion in nature and birding which became the inspiration behind Birdability. A key effort is to have birders and others contribute birding locations to the Birdability Map, “a crowd-sourced map of accessible birding locations, with details of the accessibility features of them.” Their website has a wealth of resources on birding with accessibility challenges, and how individuals and organizations alike can ensure they are welcoming and inclusive. ASNV has a team of board members and adult and youth volunteers who have to date added 43 trails to the map.
The beauty behind this movement is that anyone can contribute! All it takes is a few minutes of your time while you are on a bird outing. By completing and posting responses to a simple survey, you can submit accessibility reports and help put Northern Virginia on the map. All information you need on assessing a trail can be found here.
As you prepare to review a trail, here are a few things to keep in mind. First, check the Birdability Map itself, to ensure that the trail you wish to review has not just been assessed. It can be helpful to have a printed version of the survey questions while out on the trail. (A concise, printable checklist will be added soon to the website.) You might want to complete and submit the survey later from notes, when Internet access may be more certain. In addition, a tape measure has proven to be extremely useful for accurately measuring railing heights, door entry widths, etc.
Here are a few things to record about general accessibility, if able.
First, public transit access. Are there additional methods of transportation (bus, metro) besides an automobile to this site?
Is the trail particularly wet or muddy most of the time, during high tide, or after a storm?
Any breaks in an otherwise accessible trail?
It is important to note any park issues such as car break-ins, vandalism, or any other notable information.
Lastly, if you know how to do this, copy and paste the eBird link for the site or note interesting birds that can be seen there. That way people will know what birds to look for and the general area the birds might be in.
There are a few specific tips that will prevent confusion. For example,
when placing the pin drop, ensure that you manually place the pin on the trail head. If you use the address alone, the pin drop does not necessarily mark the actual start of the trail. This can cause the report to be misplaced on the Birdability Map.
If you post trail segments for one trail--a common practice when trails are not completely accessible in all sections--accurately placing different pin drops and naming the trail segments distinctly is especially important for separating the reports on the map.
Last is the issue of measuring slopes. The survey requests information regarding the steepness of slopes. Sometimes this information is available on signs at trailheads. Other times your guess is the best you can do! There are comment boxes for every survey question so you can note the fact that this observation was your best approximation.
If you would like to determine the slope grade, free smartphone apps like Bubble Level for iPhone can help with this process. To calculate the slope yourself, measure--or at least estimate--the length of the slope and then, from the bottom of the slope, measure from the ground up to where the measuring tape is level with the top of the slope. (See illustration below.)
With this information, you can now find the slope grade by dividing the slope height into the length of the slope in inches. For instance, the grade of a 20-foot slope with a 30-inch rise is (20 x 12 inches) divided by 30 is 8:1.
You can also post photos of slopes, obstacles, or other sights of interest to this birding location so readers can assess the trail based on their own capacities. In addition to this, you can pin any notable access points on the trail such as observation platforms, bird blinds, car birding platforms or anywhere else that one may be able to bird from.
If you would like more information, there are many resources at birdability.org. If you have mapping questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@audubonva.org.
Thank you for joining us in supporting the Birdability movement and happy trails to everyone!