Birdability Birders: Conversations about Birding with Access Challenges. Episode 2: Jerry Berrier.

Birdability and American Bird Conservancy (ABC) are co-hosting an online interview series aiming to promote accessibility, inclusion, and representation within the birding community.

Throughout the series, interviewees will discuss their experience with birding, what everyday life is like living with their disability or other health concern, and what they need from the birding community and birding locations for them to feel welcome, included, and able to access birding locations.

The second episode will feature Birdability Captain Jerry Berrier. Totally blind from birth, Jerry Berrier worked for Verizon Communications for 24 years. Since 2003 he worked as an assistive technology specialist, most recently as Director of Assistive Technology for the Perkins School for the Blind; he retired in June of 2021. He has been birding by ear since 1972, and he has served as an accessibility consultant with Mass Audubon on more than a dozen All Persons Trails projects. For several years, he has been invited by L.L.Bean to conduct birding by ear workshops at their annual spring birding event in Freeport, Maine, and has conducted numerous birding programs for adults and children who are blind.

Closed captions and an American Sign Language interpreter will be provided. The series is free to attend, but registration is required. Register to attend the second episode here.

New interviews will be held live online on the first Tuesday of every month, 6-7.30pm Eastern, from October 2021 to March 2022. You can read more about the series, upcoming guests and access recorded interviews here.