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Making Birding Spots More Accessible
How to design parks with accessibility in mind.
© BirdNote
Freya McGregor is the former coordinator of Birdability, an organization that works to make birding more accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. She says that one of the big challenges is that different parts of accessible design don’t get connected — for example, when a paved trail for wheelchair users has info signs placed too from the trail to read. Designing parks with accessibility in mind from the parking lot and all along the trail can help make outdoor experiences for people with disabilities more self-directed and independent. Learn more about Birdability on the Bring Birds Back podcast.
BirdNote®
Accessible Birding
Adapted from Bring Birds Back podcast
This is BirdNote.
[Swainson’s Thrush, ML 247407911]
Freya McGregor is the coordinator of Birdability, an organization that works to make birding more accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. She says that one of the big challenges is that different parts of accessible design don’t get connected — sometimes literally. Like, there might be a nice paved trail for wheelchair users, but then things like info signs don’t take those same visitors into account:
Freya McGregor: I see interpretive signs that are nine feet away from the trail, over a grassy surface or the sign is too high or the text is too small. Very often we think that it's just one group of people that we're serving with this modification and there's usually a whole stack of other people who benefit from it too.
Designing parks with accessibility in mind — from the parking lot and all along the trail — can help make outdoor experiences for people with disabilities more self-directed and independent.
Freya McGregor: Very often people are trying to be independent in whatever they're doing. Yeah, okay, you could get help, but that's not the point. Being outside in the woods or by a lake or somewhere by yourself, like that has so much power that is very different than being there with a friend or a group.
And once accessibility improvements are made, how do people find out about it?
Freya McGregor: It's not just enough to go, oh, well, we've built it. They should come. You've gotta be intentional. Like, we, we really want you here. Like, come join us.
Learn more about Birdability on the Bring Birds Back podcast. Listen in your podcast app or on BirdNote dot org. I’m Tenijah Hamilton.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Swainson’s Thrush ML 247407911 recorded by L. Sebastianelli.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote July 2022
Narrator: Tenijah Hamilton
ID# PodBBB-12-2022-07-26 PodBBB-12
