Birds flew far higher than the rumbling A train as enthusiasts from near and far peeked through their binoculars at mockingbirds and robins among the sound of song sparrows. On a day with blue skies and bright rays from the sun, dozens of residents showed up for the last day of Black Birder’s Week.
Saturday concluded the weeklong event across the country. The annual celebration started in 2020 by the Black AF in STEM collective. During Memorial Day Weekend that year, Christian Cooper, a Black science writer and editor, was birdwatching in Central Park when Amy Cooper, a white woman (no relation) called the police on him after he asked her to leash her dog. The collective wanted a way to honor Black naturalists. This year’s theme was ‘Wings of Justice: Soaring For Change,” with a focus on environmental justice, bird conservation and community care.
According to local organizers, the event is the first one in the Rockaways. It was hosted by the Garden By The Bay, a community garden in Edgemere and the NYC Plover Project, a volunteer group that protects the piping plover, an endangered shorebird. The event started with a nature walk in the Arverne East Nature Preserve and ended at the community garden.
“More of the community all around New York needs to come and enjoy this beautiful sanctuary,” said Myrtle E. Williams, a resident who’s lived on the Rockaways for four decades.
She brought her four-year old granddaughter with her to the nature walk. After the event, attendees strolled to the Garden By The Bay and meandered among growing eggplants, okra, peppers and cilantro, practiced yoga, and joined a community discussion about exclusion in green spaces.
AN URBAN OASIS BY THE SEA
The event also intrigued resident Florence Ferguson. Now retired, she’s lived on the peninsula since the 1990s and remembers the lot of land prior to the reserve being developed as an eyesore that dealt with issues such as illegal dumping.
The ribbon was cut on the Arverne East Nature Preserve in April. The 35-acre preserve is part of a larger plan to transform more than 100 acres of underutilized land on the Rockaways, according to the Parks Department.
The bird walk was Ferguson’s first time visiting the preserve. She said she’s watched the development of the land from the concrete being poured. Fast forward to joining the walk, she was concerned with mobility issues as she walks with a cane. The benches allowed her and her friends to stroll through the preserve and take a break when needed.
She said the guided tour helped her know the birds she looked like. She was particularly drawn to the chimney swifts and the swallows.
“Birding is for everyone. Even me,” she said. “It’s for all of us, not just the select few of us.”
Roxanne Scott photos
Residents spotting birds in Arverne East Nature Preserve on the last day of Black Birders Week. 
Florence Ferguson, 63, a resident of The Rockaways since the 1990s. Her first time visiting the Arverne East Nature Preserve for the birding event. 
Garden By The Bay, a community garden in Edgemere that was one of the organizers of Black Birders Week event on The Rockaways. 
Garden By The Bay, a community garden in Edgemere that was one of the organizers of Black Birders Week event on The Rockaways. 
Myrtle E. Williams at Garden By The Bay, a community garden in Edgemere, after taking part in Black Birders Week on The Rockaways. 
Areli Castillo Velazquez, 23, an Edgemere resident and amateur birder.
Samsam Graves, an artist, was one of the volunteers with the NYC Plover Project that led the bird walk. Though volunteers don’t set government policy about protecting piping plovers, who nest in the sand of the beaches of the Rockaways, they educate residents about the threatened bird, which includes asking beachgoers to leash their dogs.
“I was still kind of afraid because of the incident with Christian Cooper,” she said.
She eventually got over her fear and said being a volunteer has helped her break out of her shell and talk to strangers. Graves said birding has allowed her to branch out to other environmental interests including composting as well as learning about bugs and native plants.
As a guide, she also gave tips to birders during the walk including birding in quiet places, such as cemeteries, said Graves.
A MURKY HISTORY
The United States has had a gloomy record on making the outdoors a respite for people of color. Last year the NYC chapter of the National Audubon Society voted to drop “Audubon” from its title given namesake John James Audubon’s views and actions against the Indigenous and people of color. The national organization, however, decided to keep the name. John James Aubudon was a 19th-century artist and ornithologist who owned enslaved people.
Furthermore, the so-called “racial reckoning” that happened after George Floyd was killed (the same weekend that police were called on Christan Cooper), laid bare again this country’s history of excluding people of color from the outdoors. That includes racializing urban spaces as “dirty,” the conservation movement’s ties to eugenics and laws that kept Black people away or segregated in national parks. Communities of color also don’t have the same access to green spaces, such as parks, which can lead to health issues including from extreme heat.
The Rockaways was once a land where New Yorkers with some money summered. By the 1950s, the peninsula was seen as a place to castaway the city’s most vulnerable residents in need of social services. Today, zip code 11691, which includes Edgemere, Far Rockaway and Bayswater are predominately Black and Latino. Historical disinvestment has left Edgemere and other Black and Brown neighborhoods lacking resources such as more banks and medical facilities. Furthermore, the peninsula is perpetually at risk of tidal flooding, storm surges and heavy rainfall.
Organizers of the event had high hopes that the bird walk will highlight the beauty of the Rockaways. “The goal of the event was to expose people to the natural resources in their community,” said Jackie Rogers, president of the Garden By The Bay. Mel Julien, community engagement director of the NYC Plover Project, said she was glad to see a new interest sparked in residents.
BIRD’S EYE VIEW
Tammy Oruwariye traveled from Harlem for the walk and was stunned to learn during the walk that more than 400 species of birds visit New York and the surrounding areas.
Along with laughing gulls and mourning doves there were plenty of pigeons to spot, which, despite making a home in the city, are not native to New York.
Areli Castillo Velazquez is a Garden By The Bay member and an amateur birder. She said the creatures can offer humans a meditation on freedom, particularly for communities who have been oppressed. “I think we can learn from the birds,” she said, and “be deserving of that peace that birds embody themselves.”
Correction: The zip code listed is 11691 not 11692.