For Jessica Guo, birdwatching is a “gateway activity” to the outdoors.
“You start with birding and then maybe you go for walks and you go for a hike, and then you go camping and then you go backpacking and then you get into mountaineering,” she said.
Guo was one of the participants at a birdwatching expedition hosted by Outdoor Asian Colorado at Denver’s Washington Park in late April. It was a chilly Saturday, right at the start of spring migration season. From about mid-April to mid-May, millions of birds travel northward through Colorado every night.
It’s an exciting time for birders.
“Stunning!” Jane Lee exclaimed while looking at a Western kingbird spotted on the grass. It’s one of the birds that migrate through the state. Lee is with Denver Audubon and led the outing.
“There’s a huge mental health aspect benefit to birding,” she said. “Birding can help lower your blood pressure, your cortisol levels, your heart rate, and also that you can bird in community, like we are today.”
Outdoor Asian is a national organization aiming to create a community in the outdoors for Asians and Pacific Islanders.
“I think birding is one of the most accessible ways for people to get outside,” said Kylie Yang, who leads the Colorado chapter. “When people think outdoors, especially in Colorado, they see it as this grand space where you need to be on a bike or running or hiking. But it is as easy as just walking out your door, going to your local park and just sitting and listening and forming that deeper connection with your natural world.”
Only about 5% of birdwatchers self-identify as BIPOC, according to a 2021 study. Some researchers use what’s known as the “Don’t Loop” phenomenon, to partly explain why BIPOC people don’t participate in outdoor activities at higher rates. The phenomenon encapsulates the idea that if a person doesn’t know anyone else interested in an activity – like birdwatching – odds are they won’t take an interest either.
Groups like Outdoor Asian Colorado emphasize that spending time outdoors doesn’t have to be expensive or intimidating.
“Sometimes I feel like a little impostor syndrome,” said birdwatcher Giselle Cummings. “I’ve done some 14ers, but it’s not my thing to do all the time. I think there’s a little bit of like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not outdoorsy enough to be outside.’ But when I go birding, I can take time in nature and slow down, which is how I like to be in relation to nature.”
The Front Range chapter of the Feminist Bird Club meets monthly. In April, the group was at Barr Lake State Park. Lexie Sierra-Martinez set out to create the club around 2020; during COVID-19 lockdowns but also at the height of Black Lives Matter protests.
“Birding has been a hobby that can be hard to get into because it’s perceived that you need to have fancy equipment or a car to get places, but it doesn’t need to be that way,” she said. “Most people that come to these outings or a lot of people have had maybe a sour experience where they felt like they didn’t belong in the outdoors, which is crazy. We all belong here.”
The Feminist Bird Club started in New York in 2016 but has spread across the United States and Europe. On its website, the group says it’s “dedicated to promoting inclusivity in birding while fundraising and providing a safe opportunity for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, BIPOC, and women to connect with the natural world.”
It was Claire Sneed’s first time with the Front Range FBC. She said the outdoors has often felt like a “good old boys club” to her, and FBC provides a safe place to admit “you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve been in a lot of very male-dominated outdoor spaces in my time with the Forest Service and I have a geology degree,” she said. “So it’s very important to me to find these kinds of spaces where there’s more than just white guys.”
Black Birders Week 2026 took off May 24. Now in its sixth year, the weeklong celebration aims to celebrate Black birders and create more diversity in the outdoors.
“It was founded in direct response to the Christian Cooper incident where he was racially profiled in Central Park,” Jen Reid, a Black Birders Week planning committee member, said. “And on that same day in Minneapolis, George Floyd was murdered.”
To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.
