Thank you Meghadeepa, for sharing your personal experience and recommended strategies for birding with disabilities in winter! This article is reprinted
with permission from Bird Observer, February 2023, Volume 53, Number
1, www.birdobserver.org
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| Birding from the accessible gazebo at Longmeadow Flats. Photograph by Steph Almasi. |
Many folks are content limiting their birding to the abundance of spring. Seems like a smart decision. I live in small-town and rural Massachusetts, where the climate can create dangerous outdoor conditions for the six months that we split between Thanksgiving blizzards, actual winter, and faux spring. Tall snowbanks block crosswalks and views. Parking lots that are plowed on a somewhat predictable schedule are unpredictably left unsalted. Black ice surreptitiously creeps up on you when you least expect it. And even on the most popular “accessible” birding trails and bike paths, you must fend for yourself once frozen precipitation hits the ground. When you get out the door, the subzero temperatures and wind chill will surely turn your limbs into ice. And these are just the barriers that nondisabled birders experience in northern winters.
