Sustainability Building places where birds and people thrive

Iam not, and probably never will be, a real birder. Certainly, not like my bird-loving parents who rarely traveled without several pairs of binoculars and, amazingly, could still identify birds by sound and sight, into their 90s.

Our family trips to Florida’s Sanibel Island in the late 1950s and 1960s always included outings to a protected wildlife

Urban Agriculture New AgLanta Grows-A-Lot program to help end food deserts

sanctuary that, in 1976, became the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, one of the country’s largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystems. There, we stalked Roseate Spoonbills that fed in the shallow waters, sifting the muck with their wide flat bills. The alligators were always the big entertainment for my sister and me, as we were not very interested in birds at the time.

I wish that I’d paid more attention in the incredibly diverse sanctuary and that I could visit Ding Darling just one more time with my parents and hear them tell me about the birds. When I see a Roseate Spoonbill now – in its natural habitat or in an illustration as I did recently – it always makes me think of my parents, our special island and the excitement of being the first one to spot the colorful birds.

I have other bird memories and favorites: the Great Blue Herons and Belted Kingfishers that never failed to “guide” our boat down the Chattahoochee River,