Texas Trailblazers

The Birdability Dream

by Melissa Gaskill

Virginia Rose had been barreling around birding trails in her wheelchair for more than 20 years — and had never encountered another disabled person. So she started Birdability, an education, outreach and advocacy organization dedicated to introducing people with access challenges to birding and to making birding accessible for everybody.

Virginia wrote a document about access — discussing issues such as van-accessible parking, restroom doors, manageable trail surfaces and slopes, and railings that don’t obstruct the view of someone in a chair. Then she listed the steps for implementing this broader idea of “birdability.”

She has since led countless accessible birding outings, including at numerous birding festivals around the country, and makes regular presentations on the joys of birding. In 2018, Virginia conducted her own birdathon with Travis Audubon.

“For me, it begins with the empowerment that comes with birding in a wheelchair,” she says. “I started signing up for field trips without knowing whether I could wheel it, or find a hotel, or manage the gates. Knowing all that and signing up anyway takes a certain amount of bravado. The obstacles I encounter and manage with every trip provide an empowerment I wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Virginia became a paraplegic at the age of 14 after a fall from a horse. She came to birding late, at the age of 44, but she came by it honestly. Her mother always had various field guides open around the house; her grandmother birded into her 90s and even left Virginia her Peterson’s bird guide, complete with penciled notes.

It all finally clicked at a seminar on birding sponsored by Travis Audubon. True accessibility means people can safely bird alone and experience nature on their own terms and timeframes.

The Birdability website (www.birdability.org) contains resources such as advice for making sites and events accessible, a newsletter, an events calendar, links to adaptive birding equipment and the Birdability Map. Created with National Audubon, the map features accessible places to bird nationwide, to which anyone can add.

Virginia notes that many obstacles for her — gates, rocks, cactus, cattle guards, steps — can be problems for walking people as well.

“Accessibility is not just for those in chairs and with canes,” she says. “It’s for people who want to continue birding throughout their lives. It’s for you.”