‘I’m a rare bird, still’: Why Black bird watchers are celebrating their love of nature out loud

Growing up in Takoma Park, María-Elena Montero spent all of her free time outside, looking up into the neighborhood’s many trees in search of birds.

She spotted plenty. But as a young Black girl, she couldn’t find any fellow bird enthusiasts who looked like her.

“There wasn’t anyone in the encyclopedia who looked like me studying birds, so that was just so outside of the realm, it wasn’t even a possibility,” Montero, now in her 50s, told The Banner.

“So I kept my love of birds to myself. My introduction to nature was just the joy of being outside, and by extension, birds just happened to be the thing that caught my attention most.”

It’s stories like hers — and one high-profile example — that led to the creation of Black Birders Week, an annual event that aims to raise awareness about and celebrate the Black birding community while welcoming nature lovers to gather.

The first Black Birders Week was observed in the days following the May 25, 2020, Central Park incident in which Amy Cooper, a white woman, called the police and filed a false report after confronting Christian Cooper (no relation), a Black man who was bird-watching in the park. Christian Cooper has since won an Emmy Award for hosting a birding television show and published a memoir titled “Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World.”

While Black people represent about 14% of Americans, a 2022 survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency’s most recent demographics report, found that just 8% of the 96 million Americans who engage in birding are Black.

Montero, now president of the D.C. Bird Alliance and a Silver Spring resident, views Black Birders Week as an opportunity to make sure Black nature enthusiasts know that there’s a community waiting for them to join.

This year’s theme, running May 24 through May 30, is “Flyways & Freedom: Advocacy, Action, and the Future.” It invites participants to consider the policies and barriers that prevent humans from living and traveling as freely as birds.

In the capital region, there are a slew of free events planned for the next week, including a guided bird walk at Brookside Gardens that Montero will lead in Montgomery County, plus an Anacostia River kayak tour and a raptor flight demonstration in Prince George’s County.

The Banner spoke with Montero about how growing up in Montgomery County taught her to love nature, why representation in nature-related fields matters, and what she thought of “The Residence,” the hit series that features an expert Black woman birder in the nation’s capital.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Banner: You grew up in Takoma Park — how did living there influence your love of birds?

María-Elena Montero: That’s so funny you’re asking me that, because I’m sitting in Takoma Park right now, completely surrounded by trees. And that’s what happened in my upbringing. That’s one of the spoiled parts of living in Takoma Park: We were surrounded by trees everywhere and less than a mile from Sligo Creek. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful space to experience being outdoors. We were always outside. It was weird for us to be inside. I come from an era where we played outside. There was nothing for us to do inside. [Laughs.] It was a blessing to be raised there, surrounded by all this gorgeous nature.

What are some of your favorite birding spots in Maryland?

Sligo Creek Parkway, my backyard, is one of my absolute favorite places to be. The biodiversity is incredible, because there’s a lot of different habitats as you walk. Anywhere along the C&O Canal Towpath is wonderful, Wheaton Regional Park and by extension, Brookside Gardens, Lake Artemesia in College Park, the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel. But I also just tell people to go to your neighborhood park. If there are trees, there are likely to be birds, so you don’t have to go any place special, really.

Can you explain the history of Black Birders Week?

Black Birders Week was founded by a group of young people: a collective called Black AF in STEM. They started Black Birders Week very proactively in response to, among other things, the incident in Central Park with Christian Cooper. And just to highlight Black nature enthusiasts, Black professionals in the nature sciences. They started to observe a weeklong celebration and center Black people in nature, and since then, it has just gone viral all over the country with different organized chapters and individuals.

Why is this week important?

Representation is very important. I know that from my own experience. It is very important for young Black nature enthusiasts — or even if they don’t call themselves nature enthusiasts — to see me here with my binoculars, looking at birds. I’m a big, rare bird still sometimes. It’s important that we normalize Black people in nature, because that extends then to educational pathways in nature, to career pathways that deal with the natural sciences, and this is very important especially for a young urban youth so that they expand their options and their field of vision — pun intended — for what they can do with their interests and their lives.

What do you hope people gain from Black Birders Week this year?

I hope that through my own example and the example of people who I enlist to do some of the programming we feature for Black Birders Week, that we show young people, “Hey, this is accessible. I can do that. I can be a wildlife photographer. I can be an ornithologist, an oceanographer, I can do all those things because I see someone who is that.”

What did you think of “The Residence,” the hit 2025 Netflix series that featured a Black birder as the detective who relies on her birding instincts to solve a mysterious death in the White House?

I loved it. I was so happy about the show that I even wrote to Shonda Rhimes, its executive producer. She didn’t write me back. But I told her, “Hey, next time you’re in D.C., there is actually a real live Black woman who runs a birding chapter.” I’m just so happy that the passion for bird watching was portrayed in that way. It was really nice.

What’s your favorite bird?

I always say the next bird I see is my favorite. But raptors are among my favorite birds to enjoy. The whole category: hawks, eagles, falcons. I love watching them. I think they teach us a lot of lessons for us humans. They teach us to preserve our energy and only use it on things that serve our good. There’s lessons to learn from nature if we just pay attention.