Massachusetts Young Birders Club Takes Flight

Jeanne O'Rourke | May 14, 2021 | Magazines

Credit: Justin Bresnahan.

Evan Dalton, Jeremy Spool, and Kit Straley

Co-coordinators, Massachusetts Young Birders Club

“Look! Cooper’s Hawk!” The group of children, teens, and adults swiveled to find a small, striped hawk perched in a tree, deterring songbirds from using the bird feeder they were so eagerly monitoring.

Led by Jeremy Spool, a Massachusetts birder and ornithologist, the socially distanced team was watching the new feeders at the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club, hoping for a songbird or woodpecker to make an appearance. Their efforts to tally birds on this cold December morning were part of the annual Springfield Christmas Bird Count.

In partnership with the Eagle Eye Institute and the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club, this outing was one of the first official events of the revitalized Massachusetts Young Birders Club (MYBC) with Manomet as its parent organization. Spool, who studies bird neuroscience and behavior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst), is one of three co-coordinators for the club and a lifelong birder.

“For me as a kid, birding was a gateway to connect with nature,” Spool says. “Not only is it good for physical and emotional health, but life on this planet is facing some extreme challenges, and it’s important that people of all generations get to experience first-hand what nature has to offer.

The global community of birders is diverse and growing incredibly fast, with people of all ages and backgrounds discovering birding during the pandemic. But often, younger birders feel alone in their hobby and wish to connect with their peers.

“Being a young birder can be isolating,” says Evan Lipton, co-founder of the original MYBC. “Especially when other kids around you aren’t into it and most other birders are at least three times your age.”

Some young people who have an untapped passion for birds and nature don’t have regular access to the outdoors or don’t have friends and mentors that can share knowledge and enthusiasm about birding. With a guiding principle of ‘birding is for everyone,’ the MYBC aims to provide a place for young people of all backgrounds to discover and share a new passion alongside a community of their peers.

Young birder. Credit: Justin Bresnahan

The MYBC was first established in 2014 when young birders Evan Lipton and Jonathan Eckerson were looking to bring their birding friends together through an organized group.

“Jonathan originally founded the club through a photography group on the photo-sharing website Flickr,” says Lipton. “He and I spearheaded the operation to turn this small group of local young birders sharing photographs into a club with in-person trips. We thought it was imperative to connect with others in our age range with similar interests.”

The club expanded over the next four years and became an anchor point in the lives of several young Massachusetts birders. But, in 2018, the club went dormant after most members aged out and went off to college, leaving a vacuum throughout the state.

In 2019, with the MYBC founders’ blessing, Evan Dalton, Manomet’s Lead Instructor of Landbird Conservation, began calling around to youth birding clubs from other states to learn from their experiences.

“I was communicating back and forth with Laura Guerrard at Black Swamp Bird Observatory, who helps coordinate the incredibly successful Ohio Young Birders Club,” Dalton says. “Laura told me she had just heard from someone else looking to start a Massachusetts Young Birders Club. That ‘someone’ turned out to be Jeremy.”

Soon after, Dalton and Spool started working with Kit Straley, an ornithology teacher and PhD candidate in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at UMass Amherst, to revive the MYBC.

The coordinators’ initial goals are to make birding safe and accessible for young birders throughout the state and to promote a friendly, inclusive community. “First and foremost, this is a club for young birders, by young birders,” says Straley. “I think it’s important for younger folks to have opportunities to get out, discover, and form those connections with nature. There’s a whole world to explore, and everyone should feel empowered to enjoy it!”

Club activities include several monthly field trips at locations throughout the state, events with guest speakers, and an annual meeting. During all activities, the MYBC will provide leadership by a group of birding guides. “Our guides will represent a suite of near-peer mentors that will show young birders the range and diversity of bird-enthusiasts in the state,” says Dalton.

The MYBC is currently offering a hybrid of socially-distanced in-person events like the one at the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club, supplemented with digital events that will serve to build club membership and strengthen relationships. This plan will allow the club to hit the ground running when in-person field trips become safe again. Dalton, Spool, and Straley are also exploring partnerships that will help raise awareness for the MYBC, as well as birding as an activity, particularly in communities that have historically been excluded from the birding scene. “I feel strongly that birding is for everyone. One of the biggest goals for the MYBC, inspired by Black Birders Week earlier this year, is to help expand the view of who a birder is and what a birder looks like,” says Spool. “The MYBC wants to build authentic partnerships with a broad range of communities in Massachusetts — this means being flexible as to what we do at our events, where we host them, and recruiting guides and coordinators that represent the diversity of birders in our state.”

“We have just begun receiving our first membership forms from young birders,” says Dalton. “This is an incredibly exciting time and we can’t wait to see the development of the MYBC over the next year as it grows and begins to build an identity as a safe, inclusive community for every youngster to enjoy the pursuit of birding.”

Credit: Justin Bresnahan.

“There’s a Peregrine Falcon!” The small group, bundled up in many layers, peered up at the distant bird perched upon the side of a brick building. Throughout the morning, the group of young birders also spotted a Red-tailed Hawk and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. In the presence of so many potential predators, they realized the reason their feeders were so empty of diners. Events like the feeder watch are the kinds of opportunities for nature observation that the MYBC will provide through digital and in-person programming.

“For the last 30 years, Eagle Eye Institute has been connecting youth from urban communities across Massachusetts with hands-on learning and leadership opportunities in the outdoors,” says Cass Pastorelle, Program Director for the Eagle Eye Institute. “We have always partnered with naturalists, scientists, and natural resource professionals to bring their knowledge and passion to our programs and provide a career-bridging experience for young people. Partnering with the Mass. Young Birders Club has allowed us to introduce youth in Holyoke to the knowledge and technical skills of birding, and create opportunities for students to experience curiosity, wonder, and excitement at discovering local wildlife. The work of Evan, Jeremy, and Kit to make birding relevant, accessible, and fun makes all the difference in getting students typically underrepresented in the outdoors interested in this pursuit and in environmental conservation in general.”

“We were teenagers when we started the group,” says Lipton. “Although we had a hard time getting it off the ground, we ended up making some long-term friendships with like-minded and similar-aged birders. We want the newest generation of teenage birders to have the same opportunity we had, and many more.”

“One of the things I love most about birds is that they are everywhere,” adds Straley. “Once you start cueing in on that, you’re never really alone.”

The MYBC is made possible through support from the Dorr Foundation, Birds and Beans Coffee, and the Hampshire Bird Club. For more information on the club, please visit www.massyoungbirders.org

Join the MYBC!

Do you know someone age 12-20 who loves birding and lives in Massachusetts? The Massachusetts Young Birders Club is ramping up again and we encourage any young birders out there to learn more!

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