Sarah RODRIGUES
A twitching group for people of colour is helping to break down barriers, finds Sarah Rodrigues
Reaching for his binoculars, Nadeem Perera, 25, says: “Look, at the top of that shrub.” I squint. I can see… leaves? Ollie Olanipekun, 36, laughs. “This is what Nadeem does. If there’s a bird, he’ll spot it.”
It’s a cold weekday evening on Hackney Marshes, and the “leaves” turn out to be a tiny marsh warbler.
I’m out with the founders of Flock Together, a London-based collective determined to show observing nature is not just for people who live in the country. Not only that, but their paramount objective is to encourage people of colour to feel comfortable in green spaces.
“I’ve always used time in nature as therapy,” says Olanipekun, an agency founder and creative director. “I was really struggling a few months ago and I shared some images of birds on Instagram. This guy started identifying every bird, and it turned out that he wasn’t – as I’d suspected – a middle-aged white guy in the Lake District, but young, local and brown. We messaged and came up with the idea of a birdwatching club: by that weekend, it was happening.”
By the end of that first walk, says Olanipekun, “the energy was like nothing I ever could have imagined”.
As well as the broader activism around race discrimination, the safety of people of colour in green spaces was brought into sharp focus earlier this year when writer and birdwatcher Christian Cooper asked a white woman to secure her dog in a “dogs on leads” area in New York’s Central Park – prompting her to call the police saying that he was threatening her.
Flock Together was not born in response to that event, although it may have impacted their immediate success: from 15 people on their first walk, in June, to more than 50 by their third, in August.
For the time being, at least, Flock Together is only for people of colour, to enjoy time in nature and reconcile it with their own sense of identity. “Nature requires nothing of you. It allows you to just be. And that is hugely fulfilling for the individual,” says Perera, a youth sports coach. One of the UK’S most prominent black birdwatchers, David Lindo, aka The Urban Birdwatcher, agrees that time in nature is incredibly restorative. Born to a family of Jamaican immigrants in London, he was “very conscious of the colour of my skin, experienced name calling and physical attacks… Nature was my refuge.” He doesn’t believe that people of colour are precluded from spending time in nature because of racism. It’s true, he says, that there are “few role models in the arena – I’ve probably only met about five or six other black birders in my life – but I’ve never felt ostracised by the birding community”. The problem, he says, goes deeper than how people of colour are perceived – it’s also to do with how they perceive themselves. After all, even Olanipekun assumed that Perera was a particular “type” of person. “Even publications aimed at people like me – their message is always classic stereotypes,” says Lindo.
“Footballer, rapper, basketballer... it feeds into the notion of ‘none of my peers are doing it, so I don’t belong there’.” Flock Together is attempting to break this perception.
“When you see people of your kind in these spaces, you feel more comfortable,” says Perera. “We’re creating our own platform, and directing how we want to be represented.”
The pair are both passionate about reaching young people, and are currently in talks with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds about how to do this.
“It’s not just the benefits of the natural world – this world that’s right on their doorsteps,” says Olanipekun. “It’s advice, it’s mentorship.”
Although relative quiet is necessary for birdwatching, the group make a pit stop to talk and get things off their chests. “Uplifting and supporting our people is just as important to us as opening their eyes to nature,” says Perera. “The reaction has been so incredible; it just makes me wonder why nothing of this kind existed before,” marvels Olanipekun. “Old, young, black, white – without exception, everyone has said, ‘This is amazing, how can I be involved?’ ”
We pause to let a cyclist past and he stops and says: “Hey, you guys are on Instagram – you’re into birdwatching, right? I follow you! I love what you do!”
It’s a heartwarming moment. Flock Together, it seems, are breaking down more than preconceptions.
‘I’ve probably only met about five or six other black birders in my life’