On April 16, 2024, from 9:30-11:30 A.M., Mike Fernandez of National Audubon will join Virginia Rose, founder of Birdability, at Travis Audubon’s Blair Woods Nature Preserve in East Austin! We will experience the birds and other natural features on this new accessible trail in one of East Austin’s premier green spaces.
Hosted by Birdability, in collaboration with Travis Audubon, this registration-required bird outing will be an opportunity to experience the partnership of Birdability’s ongoing advocacy and education for disabled birders and the efforts of Travis Audubon’s work to ensure that every person, regardless of ability, has access to and feels safe to experience nature in a welcoming and inclusive environment. This will be an event specifically for birders with disabilities, and those with disabilities interested in exploring birding, to join an outing led by Virginia Rose to highlight the access features of the Blair Woods Nature Preserve and the beauty of an accessible community through birding.
Birdability was founded in 2018 by Austin resident, Virginia Rose, who has built the organization to advocate for access to public lands for those with disabilities and other health concerns, to introduce birding to folks with disabilities, and to create welcoming and inclusive birding organizations – all through education, advocacy, and building community. The need for accessible trails and birding sites spurred Rose to collaborate with the National Audubon Society to create the Birdability Map, a crowd-sourced map of the specific access features at sites across the country and the world, with the ongoing support of Travis Audubon. Our Austin community features heavily on the map’s 1600+ sites, and this crown jewel of accessible design at Blair Woods is partly a result of these amazing partnerships.
Based on an accessible design by Tim Eischen using a US Forest recreational plan, the trail includes a pollinator garden, a pond, an amazing accessible bird blind and water feature, a geological outcropping, an archaeological site related to El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, and a 100-year-old Dairy Barn.
Travis Audubon owns a ten-acre nature preserve on Austin’s East Side—Blair Woods—that is open and free to the public daily. Blair Woods was gifted to Travis Audubon in 1985 as part of the estate of Dr. Frank Blair, a renowned zoologist at The University of Texas at Austin. Over the last 15 years, Travis Audubon Staff and Volunteers have worked to restore the habitat of Blair Woods by removing invasive plants and establishing the growth of natives. Through these revitalization efforts, we have seen increased biodiversity and have recorded more than 140 bird species on the property.
This event is specifically for birders with disabilities and their care attendants or other helpers. If you would like more information about this event, please email Virginia Rose at vrose6784@gmail.com.
Photo by Mike Fernandez National Audubon
