Season 3, episode 2. In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask, What does bird watching have to do with Quakers?

Lessons from Birds about Nature, Community, and Racial Justice

Birdwatching may seem like a serene, perhaps even solitary activity, but in the latest episode of the Quakers Today Podcast, we discover it’s a window into much larger conversations about community, justice, and spirituality. Rebecca Heider, a white birder from Philadelphia, shares her Quaker guide to birdwatching, revealing the profound lessons she has learned from birding. Her concept of a ‘spark bird’ – the one that ignites a birder’s passion is a beautiful anecdote and a metaphor for those transformative moments in life that guide our paths.

Rebecca Hieder discusses her article, “A Quaker Guide to Birdwatching: Eight Lessons for Friends and Seekers.” This discussion also highlights the importance of respecting nature and the profound joy that can be found in everyday moments of observation. Miche McCall crafted the sound design.

#BlackBirdersWeek

Tykee James, a Black birder also originally from Philadelphia, opens up about the joys and dangers of birding while Black. In May 2020, a video from Central Park’s “The Ramble” went viral, showing a white woman, Amy Cooper, calling the police on a black birdwatcher, Christian Cooper (no relation) after he asked her to leash her dog as required by park rules. 

Despite his calm approach, Amy escalated the situation by threatening to report an African American man was threatening her life. The incident, captured on video and viewed over 40 million times, sparked widespread discussions about racial bias and the history of false accusations against black individuals.  

This incident led Tykee and other Black birdwatchers to create Black Birders Week, an event that celebrates diversity in birdwatching and challenges the stereotypes and racial injustices that still exist in outdoor activities. Tykee views the week as a celebration of joy, resilience, and diverse experiences within the Black community.

Tykee shares how his experiences with urban birding as a teen exposed him to community connections and the stark realities of racial and environmental injustices. These observations led him to co-found Amplify for the Future and become the president of the DC chapter of the Audubon Society. Tykee is currently part of a campaign to rename the Audubon Society to better reflect its values, acknowledging its historical context. The theme for the 2024 Black Birders Week is “Wings of Justice: Soaring for Change,” and it is hosted by Black AF in Stem.

You can hear a longer version of Tykee’s interview on Episode 59 of Citizens Climate Radio. 

Reviews and Recommendations

In this segment of the Quakers Today podcast, Miche McCall and Peterson Toscano delve into recent book reviews from Friends Journal. Peterson shares his enthusiasm for Ruth Todd’s new book Isaac Penington, a Seventeenth-century Quaker Mystic, Teacher, and Activist. He highlights Penington’s influential role in early Quakerism and his spiritually led writings, noting Todd’s unique approach, including metaphors from nature and experiential exercises for readers.

Miche shares their intrigue with Altar to an Erupting Son by Chuck Collins, a novel that challenges notions of pacifism through its provocative opening scene and subsequent exploration of the impact of violence. This leads to a broader discussion on pacifism and activism within the context of creating a better world.

Additionally, Peterson is curious about Daybreak, a cooperative board game focused on climate change solutions, emphasizing the game’s community-building aspect and eco-friendly design. Miche shares their recommendation of the Headspace app’s Sleepcasts, particularly those with a Star Wars theme, highlighting their effectiveness in aiding relaxation and sleep.

Find more reviews at Friends Journal online. 

Question for next month

When you walk into a new space, what do you see, hear, or experience that makes you feel welcome? What might be present that leads you to conclude you may not be welcome? The space may be a library, a place of worship, or someone’s home. It might be a town, a business, or a school. 

Leave a voice memo with your name and the town where you live. The number to call is 317-QUAKERS, that’s 317-782-5377. +1 if calling from outside the U.S. You can also send an email: podcast @ friendsjournal.org

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Transcript for Quakers, Birds, and Justice

SPEAKERS: Rebecca Heider, Tykee James, Miche McCall, Peterson Toscano

Peterson Toscano  00:00

In this episode of Quakers Today we ask What does birdwatching have to do with Quakers?

Miche McCall  00:05

And what can birds teach us about inequality, justice and liberation?

Peterson Toscano  00:09

Rebecca Heider, a white birder in Philadelphia shares with us a Quaker Guide to Birdwatching. She’s been learning lessons while birding.

Miche McCall  00:18

Tykee James, a Black birder from Philadelphia, shares the pleasures and perils of birding while Black. One racist incident in a city park led to a creative national response.

Peterson Toscano  00:29

And we have recommendations for you. I’m Peterson Toscano

Miche McCall  00:33

and I’m Miche McCall. This is Season 3, Episode 2 of the Quakers, Today podcast, a project of Friends Publishing Corporation. This season of Quakers, Today is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

Peterson Toscano  00:48

I recently sat down with Rebecca Hyder to talk about birds. The April 2024 issue of Friends Journal includes Rebecca’s article, a Quaker Guide to Birdwatching, which offers eight lessons for friends and seekers. She agreed to tell us about her experiences with birding and the concept of a spark bird. I confess to Rebecca though, that when I imagined people birdwatching, I often envision a spry elderly white couple out in the woods with binoculars.

Rebecca Heider  01:22

Well, I think I shared that stereotype with you. And then as I got more involved, I was kind of blown away by how many different kinds of birders there are. There’s really no one way to describe them in terms of their age or race or rural or urban. A lot of serious birding happens within cities. Philadelphia turns out to be a great place to do birding, even though it’s a big urban area. 

Rebecca Heider  01:52

A spark bird is the species of bird or the bird encounter that sparks someone’s interest in birding. Everyone I’ve talked to can pinpoint a bird or a birding experience that really lit their passion. A lot of beautiful stories come out of those spark bird moments. I’m more interested in nature and birding is one way into that. And I do like to learn the names and learn about the birds because I’m interested. 

But if I go with a group of birders, I’m often the one who’s crawling under some bush looking for a bug that’s interesting, rather than looking at the birds. I was often surrounded by people who weren’t paying attention the way I was paying attention to the birds. Sometimes that was fine. They were going about their day. But sometimes it was distressing to the birds, like they’re walking their dog scaring the birds away. I feel like I’m a guest in the birds space. I want to treat their space and their quiet with respect. 

Rebecca Heider  03:08

The transformative moment in my relationship with birds came in August at an Audubon event. Sitting in a large circle. We spoke out of the silence about the bird that first sparked our interest in birding. It was a powerful experience of sharing our deep emotional connections with nature and with each other, and it had the spirit of a Quaker Meeting for Worship. My own spark bird was a Northern Flicker. I saw this bird with its beautifully patterned plumage in my yard and I had no idea what it was. Breathless with excitement, I ran from room to room peering out my windows to get a better view. That night I eagerly reported the encounter to my family. In the following days, I reflected on the inmense and unlooked for joy that bird brought me the Northern Flicker had likely been visiting my yard regularly. But I hadn’t been paying attention before. 

It was an important lesson to realize the joy I felt that day had been available to me all the time. All I had to do was look for it. I was so moved by that experience of hearing other people’s spark bird moments. I would love for everyone to have a chance to share those kinds of moments and hear from other people in their community about any of these moments that really inspire passion and us because we don’t have enough of those conversations.

Peterson Toscano  04:33

That was Rebecca Heider. She wrote the article a Quaker Guide to bBirdwatching: Eight Lessons for Friends and Seekers. It appears in the April 2024 issue of Friends Journal. You can also read it at Friendsjournal.org The excellent sound design, the incredible sound design. The wonderful sound design was produced by Miche McCall. Miche, really excellent work. Thank you.

Miche McCall  05:00

You are too kind, Peterson. I really felt connected to Rebecca’s version of birding. She got excited about the Goldfinch instead of that rare bird that people were looking for, and she gets on the ground and looks for bugs instead of the birds in the trees, even if she is with other people. I love that she talks about how simple creatures are just as special and miraculous as the ones that are rarer. Peterson, you spoke to someone else about birds and lessons from bird watching.

Peterson Toscano  05:33

Yeah, Tykee James, like Rebecca Heider, Tykee grew up in Philadelphia and he became interested in urban birding as a teen one summer working for a city park.

Tykee James  05:45

This job was connecting me to my community, it was connecting me to nature, it was connecting me to the history of injustice as to why in my travels of watching birds in the city of Philadelphia, I see that some parks have park benches, street lights and trash cans, more accessible, more maintained. And then other parks don’t have those three elements, those fundamental building blocks of what makes a safe and welcoming Park. It’s easy to see those things and ask yourself why. When you ask yourself, why and you look into the history of decisions that were made that made some people some zip-codes sacred, and some people and some other zip-codes sacrificial, it becomes very clear that the determining factor is race and poverty, where environmental blight, environmental hazards, and environmental burden are disproportionately placed. And I was able to see that just through birdwatching. There’s a lot of ways that people can come to this. For me, it was just my job as a birder, and as someone who is trying to connect people to the park.

Peterson Toscano  06:52

Tykee has gone on to co-found Amplify for the Future, a group that promotes equality in education, conservation careers, and outdoor enjoyment. He currently lives in Washington DC, where he is the president of the DC chapter of the Audubon Society. Tykee was also one of the original organizers of black birders week in 2020. Black birders created the event in response to a racist incident in Central Park.

Tykee James  07:20

The national conversation, when it was about the Black experience, it was particularly around the passing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging in Georgia, before he was taken from us. Sometimes, I think that he could have been watching birds, right? Within that timeline, Christian Cooper was doing his thing in Central Park, birding, this is a story that you can look up as well encourage folks to see it. And having a viral experience of racial harassment during that time, particularly in the lens of the Birding community, you know, there was a group chat where we were like, well, let’s think about what this means. Let’s think about what it would mean to rise to the moment, because we did not pick our moment. Like, right? Like this is not at all anything that we planned very far ahead of time it was in the group chat that I tagged out #BlackBirdersWeek? And it seemed like a good pitch. 

From then on, so many folks had a hand and help building this and I mean, it was something nice to wake up to if people were just like, you know, Bird Twitter was just being Bird Twitter. It was something nice and new to wake up to and it was put together in a matter of hours before it started basically. It was like riding a bike as we were building it, and the bike was going downhill. It was just very, very engaging and it had such an impact globally, in a way that I don’t think anyone really expected. 

Tykee James  08:56

I mean, we were gonna have fun with it, the organizers of Black Birders Week, we knew that if we were just the audience, we were going to be just fine. Being an audience to so many people in a way that inspired them really means a lot. When the Black experience has been part of the national conversation, what we see is trauma so much. The Black experience goes beyond trauma. The black experience encompasses joy, pride, resilience, strength, and style. Black Birders Week was all about that. It’s nice that I can have a space, create a space, and build a space with people where we can be our authentic selves. Knowing that we live in a country that is majority white and whiteness has had a head start in defining so many things. So it’s nice that my Blackness and my Bird-ness can create some joy.

Peterson Toscano  09:54

The 2024 Black Birders Week will take place May 26th to June 1st. The theme this year is Wings of Justice: Soaring for Change. It’s hosted by black AF in STEM, get more info at BlackAFinstem.com

Miche McCall  10:13

And learn more about Tykee James at his work at the Washington DC chapter at the Audubon Society. One of their current efforts is to rename the society. John James Audubon enslaved Africans. Chapters in Seattle and Portland have led the movement to change the name. Learn about this and more by visiting Tykee’s Linktree page, just do a search for Tykee James and you’ll find that Tykee is spelled T-K-Y-E-E.

Peterson Toscano  10:40

The conversation I had with Tykee James comes from Citizens Climate Radio Podcast. You can hear the full conversation by visiting CCLusa.org/radio. Look for episode 59. That website again is CCLusa.org/radio.

Miche McCall  11:07

Every month Friends Journal publishes reviews of books that appeal to Quakers and those curious about Quakers. These appear both in the print edition and online. Peterson, which one of the books reviewed sparked your interest?

Peterson Toscano  11:21

Anytime I see anything about Isaac Penington, my interest is sparked. So I’m excited about Ruth Todd’s new book exploring Isaac Penington, 17th-Century Quaker Mystic, Teacher, and Activist. If you don’t know who Isaac Penington was, he was a key figure in early Quakerism. He really helped the movement grow amid the political chaos of the 1600s in England. This was the time when they executed King Charles I. Chaos. And his writings, they’re just really spirit led. I love that he and his wife collaborated and she contributes a lot too, to his work. Both their contributions are significant. In Ruth Todd’s book, she is exploring Peningtons teachings but also uses metaphors from nature to illustrate some of his spiritual insights. She offers readers these experiential exercises to deeply understand the concepts. And I think this is going to be like one of those like, daily devotional kind of books that I might get into. What about you, Miche?

Miche McCall  12:25

I was looking through the reviews and this book Altar to an Erupting Sun by Chuck Collins, stood out to me, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time thinking that fiction could help me in my spiritual practice or my religious life. But Ruah Swennerfelt’s review of that book really made me rethink that. Rae, the main character does something really drastic in the very first page of the book. She kills an oil company exec along with herself. 

Peterson Toscano  12:59

Aye. Wow. 

Miche McCall  13:01

As the effect of this ripples throughout her community, the reader has to contend with our own idea of what violence might be justified. I’m excited to read this book and think about how Quakers pacifism versus peace and, and what it means to make a better world. That book again, is Altar to an Erupting Sun, by Chuck Collins. 

Peterson Toscano  13:21

Wow. It’s such an important timely conversation to have as we’re trying to think about how to move forward. So I’m thinking about other recommendations that don’t appear in Friends Journal, I am not a game person, but I’m trying to become one. So I’m excited about a cooperative board game called Daybreak. It’s about pursuing climate change solutions together and there’s no like one winner or loser. You have to work together. That’s what I’m told a cooperative game does it make sense? 

Peterson Toscano  13:54

And in the game, it shows us a future where we can invent amazing tech and strong communities that protect the Earth. This game was made by Matt Leacock, who also created the famous game Pandemic. The Daybreak game box is packed with eco friendly pieces, and it has hundreds of unique drawings by artists from all over the globe. So I’m gonna get this game for sure. You can learn more about it at DaybreakGame.org.

Miche McCall  14:23

Yeah, I love cooperative games. I am one of those people who doesn’t really care if I win or lose, as long as everyone’s having fun, which, maybe is not everyone’s cup of tea when they’re playing games. But I also think a cooperative game makes the most sense with a topic like this. 

Miche McCall  14:40

Yeah. 

Miche McCall  14:41

For my recommendation, Peterson I was thinking all month about what I wanted to recommend to you. It hit me as I was falling asleep the other night. The thing I was doing right there was the thing I wanted to recommend. I listened to Headspace, the app, to fall asleep. I keep subscribing because there are these three Star Wars themed Sleepcasts, and my favorite one is describing the avian species that live on the islands of Ahch-To. It describes the Porgs. and also the Lenai, which are birds that wear clothes. The Sleepcast is describing this beautiful Star Wars planet in a lulling tone that I often don’t even get past the first two minutes. Honestly, these sleepcasts have changed my life. I’ve never fallen asleep faster, and the app is called Headspace.

Peterson Toscano  15:35

I’ll check this out and for you listening, we’re not being paid for making these recommendations. These are just things that we like.

Miche McCall  15:41

Absolutely.

Peterson Toscano  15:43

Well, Miche thank you so much for being part of the show and helping to shape it and just joining in the fun and the important conversations that we’re having. And thank you for joining us for this episode of Quakers Today. If you like what you heard, and you listen on Apple podcasts, please do us a favor, rate and review our show.

Miche McCall  16:05

And thank you so much for everyone who’s been sharing Quakers Today with their friends and all of your many followers on social media. 

Peterson Toscano  16:15

Quakers, Today is written and produced by me Peterson Toscano and

Miche McCall  16:19

by me, Miche McCall. Music and sound effects on today’s show comes from Epidemic Sound, and the Macaulay library. Season Three of Quakers, Today is sponsored by American Friends Service Committee.

Peterson Toscano  16:34

Do you want to challenge unjust systems and promote lasting peace? The American Friends Service Committee or AFSC works with communities worldwide to drive social change. Their website features meaningful steps you can take to make a difference. Through their Friends Liaison program, you can connect your meeting or church with AFSC and their justice campaigns. Find out how you can become part of AFSC’s global community of changemakers visit AFSC.org. That’s AFSC.org. 

Miche McCall  17:11

Visit Quakers today.org To see our show notes and a full transcript of this episode. And if you stick around after closing, you’ll hear listeners responses to our question – What recommendation do you have for us and why? Thank you, friend.

Peterson Toscano  17:26

We look forward to spending more time with you soon.

 

END of SHOW

Monthly Question

Peterson Toscano  17:33

In a moment, you will hear listeners voicemails about recommendations they have for us. But first we have a new question for you. Here it is: When you walk into a new space. What do you see, hear, or experience that makes you feel welcome? And what might be present that leads you to conclude you may not be welcome?

Miche McCall  17:55

The space you’re thinking of might be a place of worship, but it also might be someone’s home or a library. It might be a whole town, or a business, or a school. When you walk into a new space, what do you see, hear, or experience that makes you feel welcome? And what might be present that leads you to conclude that you might not be welcome?

Peterson Toscano  18:17

Leave a voicemail with your name and the town where you live. The number to call is 317-Quakers. That’s 317-782-5377. 317-Quakers. +1 if you’re calling from outside the USA.

Miche McCall  18:33

If you feel shy about leaving a voicemail, you can also send us an email! Podcast@friendsjournal.org We have these contact details in our show notes over at Quakerstoday.org.

Peterson Toscano  18:45

Now we hear your answers to the question, what recommendation do you have for us, and why?