Blind Birder Walk with the Old Rag Master Naturalists

November 3, 2025

The Birdability logo features a stylized illustration of a White-breasted Nuthatch, set against a bright blue circular background. Surrounding the bird in a ring are the words “Birding is for every body” and “Birdability” in dark blue text, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to inclusive and accessible birding.

–Contributed by Charlene Uhl, VMN Old Rag Chapter

Over the last few years Old Rag Master Naturalists (ORMN) has actively worked to make our activities and events accessible to people who have physical challenges, including mobility and visual disabilities. All our approved activities identify the level of accessibility that each activity has, to increase the accessibility of as many projects as possible. Our chapter was delighted to participate in the first nationwide Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon on May 18^th, 2025. This walk was sponsored by Birdability, a non-profit organization dedicated to making the birding community and the outdoors welcoming, inclusive, safe, and accessible for everybody. This includes people with mobility challenges, blindness or low vision, chronic illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, mental illness, and those who are, deaf or hard of hearing, or who have other health concerns. The Birdability organization works to improve the physical accessibility of birding locations, with its aim to have a welcoming and inclusive birding community and to introduce people with access challenges.

ORMN contacted the Birdability organization on how to identify folks who were blind or visually impaired in order to invite them to participate in our bird walk. A leader from the Birdability organization recommended that we contact the Federation of the Blind for Virginia. The president of this organization helped us to broadcast an invitation to its members. We also asked for information that we could share with the Master Naturalist volunteers who would be leading the walk. These two strategies paid off. An excellent video was available that our members viewed, which provided guidance on the best and most respectful way we could offer assistance to blind participants during the bird walk. We had four members of the Federation of the Blind from northern Virginia participate in our local walk. None had ever been on a bird walk.

The Birdability Map is a central and innovative tool, a crowd-sourced map that provides detailed accessibility information for birding locations across the country. It allows individuals to plan outings effectively by knowing accessibility features beforehand, such as trail surfaces, slopes, and amenities. The National Audubon Society’s GIS team played a crucial role in building this map and continues to maintain it. Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers are partnering with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources to evaluate all sites on the Virginia Bird and Wildlife Trail and add them to the Birdability Map. Of the three trails in our catchment that have been designated a Birdability trail we selected Lenn Park, which is located in Culpeper County and also easily accessible by car. Lenn Park has 85 acres and offers diverse bird habitats, including open fields, a riparian habitat along Mountain Run Creek and a pollinator garden. Close to 250 bird species have been recorded within the park’s habitats.

ORMN members Linda Bueno and Charlene Uhl coordinated the walk. Three other ORMN members – Alan Edmunds, Barry Buschow, and Tina Goldizen – also participated. We walked for over 2 hours and 1.5 miles around the park. We had a one-to-one ratio of ORMN members and guests. This offered us the opportunity to guide participants as needed and we got to know each other as we walked through the park.

We all used Merlin, with some of our guests using it for the first time. We walked for almost two hours and saw or heard over 17 bird species. This included Common Yellowthroat, Great Crested Flycatcher, Indigo Bunting, and Eastern Wood Pewee.

After the walk we asked our guests for their impressions of the walk. All four stated they enjoyed the walk and hoped they would have more opportunities in the future. The President of the Federation of the Blind of Virginia, who helped recruit folks and participated in the walk, said it made him realize that “birds are all around us” and he will pay much more attention to their presence and their songs.

And our walk clearly made positive impression with our guests. We encouraged them to add a bird walk as part of The Federation of the Blind of Virginia annual meeting. They have already contacted the local Master Naturalist chapter and invited them to lead a bird walk as part of the annual meeting.