WASHINGTON — If you’re a birdwatcher, Clemson University professor of wildlife ecology J. Drew Lanham says, you’ll need a spotting scope, binoculars and a field guide.
And if you’re a black birdwatcher, he says, “You’re going to need probably two or three forms of ID.” He’s only half-joking. In a video that walks a line between comic and serious, Lanham says as a black birdwatcher, he has to consider how he looks when out in the field.
At one point in the video he balls up a hoodie, looks into the camera and says, “Never wear a hoodie. Ever.” That’s an obvious reference to the Trayvon Martin case and viewers have commented how they weren’t quite sure if they should laugh at the wry humor in the segment. That sentiment’s grown more acute since the video was made. The shootings of black men from Ferguson, Missouri to North Charleston, South Carolina have heightened the awareness of how African American men are perceived. Referring to the humor in the video, Lanham says, “I like to tell people that I want you to laugh at it, and then think about why you laughed. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”
But there’s another goal behind the video –and to Lanham’s work as an ecologist. Lanham wants to do away with the stereotype of the birdwatcher. “ I call it the “old Jane Hathaway box,” he says, referring to a character on the “Beverly Hillbillies” sitcom of the 1960s. Jane Hathaway was a prim banker’s assistant who was given to dressing in khakis and a pith helmet and rhapsodizing about her latest sighting of some rare bird. Back then Lanham says, the message was, “’birding was for little old white ladies.”
Lanham says he got into birding, “because I could travel vicariously through birds. I knew that they were going places that I couldn’t go at the time. And they were flying-and I wanted to fly.” Whenever he gets the chance, he works to foster an interest in nature, especially among people of color. He emphasizes that you don’t have to be in some far off wilderness area to experience the excitement of seeing birds you’d never noticed before. “Some of the best birding in the U.S. is in Central Park,” he says, referring to the giant swath of green space in New York City. That’s not the only urban center rich in bird life. In Washington, D.C, there are three pairs of American Bald Eagles that have made nests. Local biologists have recently confirmed that there are eaglets in two of those three nests.
Lanham sees a clear link to the natural world, and it’s something he’d like everyone to share. He explains, “I mean, we’re all in this thing together. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, tread the same ground. So, if we figure out how to get along together and for us to appreciate other living beings, then I think it’s a better thing in the end.”
VIDEO: Lanham’s Rules for the Black Birdwatcher
If interested in birdwatching, the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia and the Maryland Ornithological Society are suggested online resources.
