Apprentices: On Your Mark, Get Set, Bird!
探花精选's Fund II Foundation apprentices competed in a friendly bird-off for bragging rights. Here鈥檚 how it all went down.
Editor's Note: After learning about serious allegations against Jason Ward, the 探花精选 has severed its ties with him.
A couple of months ago I traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to document a friendly bird-off among the , the , , each represented by a birder: Tania Romero, Jose Santiago, and Jason Ward, respectively. The three birders and I were fellow apprentices in 探花精选's Fund II Foundation Apprenticeship Program鈥攁 yearlong, full-time apprenticeship for diverse young leaders entering the conservation field. Throughout the year, apprentices received on-the-job training from mentors in their line of work and gained professional opportunities like initiating new programs and attending conferences.
The seed for the idea of a bird-off came from a desire to build connections between programs and centers across the 探花精选 network. The fellows wondered: 鈥淚s there anything we could all do together?鈥 Santiago suggested the idea of a bird-off. The rules would be simple: Go out and find birds from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. The winning location and apprentice would be determined by bird abundance and species diversity.
They concluded that late September or early October during peak fall migration would be the best time to conduct the competition, see a diversity of species, and get community members to come out in droves.
When the clocks hit noon, my fellow apprentices passed over their tallies to a third-party judge (me). With 52 species and 826 birds in total, the winner of the inaugural 探花精选 bird-off was Tania Romero and her 鈥榖ird army鈥 at Debs Park.
Each had their own homecourt advantages. Romero had the upper hand in Ward went birding on a nature reserve known for its biodiversity, and Santiago strategically pushed for the bird-off to be on , the first anniversary of the opening of the Discovery Center. The hundreds of people visiting the center enjoyed free programming and were enticed to join Santiago as he strove to win the crown.
鈥淭ania has the power to amass a whole bird army and Jason is the most expert birder I know,鈥 Santiago says. 鈥淭he Discovery Center did not win, but at least this was a mini 探花精选-network victory. Tania, Jason, and I got people to interact with green spaces and participate in bird walks during peak migration.鈥