Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Planet Money Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Visual impairments don't keep these birders out of the hobby The phrase "bird watching" does not take in the full range of people who love searching for wild birds. We meet a few of the many visually impaired birders who use their ears. National Visual impairments don't keep these birders out of the hobby May 27, 20264:30 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered By Nancy Eve Cohen Visual impairments don't keep these birders out of the hobby Listen · 3:52 3:52 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5818482-e1/nx-s1-9787594" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript The phrase "bird watching" does not take in the full range of people who love searching for wild birds. We meet a few of the many visually impaired birders who use their ears. Sponsor Message
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Birds are on the move. Three to four billion of them migrate north every spring from Mexico and South America. It's a great time for people who enjoy identifying birds. Recently, reporter Nancy Eve Cohen joined a group of birders outside of Boston that includes people who are blind, and she sends us this story.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
JERRY BERRIER: That's a oriole.
NANCY EVE COHEN: Jerry Berrier points out the song of a Baltimore oriole. He's never seen one or any other bird. He's been blind since birth.
J BERRIER: If that's not a pretty sound, I've never heard one. When I hear the orioles for the first time in the spring, it's like, oh, it's so uplifting.
LEE BERRIER: That's his I-know-spring-is-here bird (laughter).
J BERRIER: Yeah (laughter).
COHEN: That's his wife, Lee Berrier, who's keeping track of the species he hears today.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
COHEN: Back when Berrier was a college student in the 1970s, his biology professor...
J BERRIER: Didn't know what to do with me during the lab portion of the course.
COHEN: So the teacher loaned him recordings of bird songs on vinyl and said his lab grade would be based on how well he could identify species in the woods.
J BERRIER: By the end of the semester, I was a birder. I was hooked, and I've been doing it ever since.
MARTHA STEELE: All right, Quinnah, let's go. Let's go.
COHEN: Martha Steele walks alongside her guide dog, a yellow lab.
STEELE: Ah, red-bellied woodpecker. That's the first time I heard that this morning.
COHEN: Steele started birding when she was in her late 30s, almost 40 years ago. She could see birds then but could not hear them. She was hearing impaired because of a medical condition, which also caused her vision to fade over time.
STEELE: I was scared, frankly, because I started losing substantial central vision.
COHEN: So she got surgically fitted with cochlear implants. They allow her to hear really well.
STEELE: Tufted titmouse. Do you hear that off to the right?
COHEN: She remembers leaving the hospital with her husband and birding partner, Bob Stymeist, and hearing birds for the first time.
STEELE: I heard these chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp sounds. Oh, my God. What's that? And he said, house sparrows?
COHEN: In that moment, she realized there was a path forward without sight.
STEELE: And that started me all over again from the beginning as a beginning birder, starting to learn bird songs by hearing. Birds keep me in the present, keep me focused on things that are much larger than me - the Earth, the universe. And it also is something that I share very deeply with my husband.
COHEN: Who's pointing out birds along the way.
BOB STYMEIST: There's a wonderful orchard oriole that's been right here in the trees.
STEELE: Oh.
STYMEIST: It hasn't been singing.
COHEN: Jerry Berrier says birding allows him to live life on his own terms.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
J BERRIER: I want to get a lot out of my life as it is because I can't change how it is, but I can change my attitude, and I can change what I focus my energy on. And birding has really just - that's been it for me.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
COHEN: And this time of year, when birds are migrating, it's inspiring.
J BERRIER: There is a huge world out there that I and other human beings know very little about and will never be able to fully experience. And it just gives me a feeling of awe, and I like that.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
COHEN: For NPR News, I'm Nancy Eve Cohen.
SUMMERS: And thanks to Elise DeLeone (ph) for recording bird songs for this story.
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