By Anton Crone
From backyards in the United States to the bushveld of South Africa, blind birders are proving that nature is not only something to see.
For most birders, the thrill lies in glimpsing flashes of movement and colour through binoculars: bright sunbirds in the African bush or Blue Jays flitting through the tall trees of North America. Yet for a growing community across the globe, birding is an entirely auditory adventure. Guided by sound rather than sight, they are reshaping not only what birding means but also who gets to take part.
Earlier this year, more than 200 blind and visually impaired participants from 34 U.S. states, as well as Puerto Rico, Canada and Venezuela joined the inaugural Blind Birdathon, an event designed to bring people with vision loss into the birding fold. Around the same time, in South Africa’s Dinokeng Game Reserve just an hour from Johannesburg, Kwalata Game Lodge launched its own pioneering blind birding initiative, inviting community members from Empowerment of the Blind to attend their annual Birding Bash.
These efforts share the same goal: to open the natural world to those who have long been excluded from it.
From Massachusetts to Dinokeng: How it began
In the United States, one of the creators of the Blind Birdathon is Martha Steele, a lifelong birder who lives with Usher syndrome, a rare condition that causes both vision and hearing loss.
‘I had severe hearing loss as a young child, and I’ve worn hearing aids for most of my life,’ says Steele. ‘When I first started birding around 35 years ago, I could still see quite well centrally — very sharp, but I could not hear birds. The vast majority were too high pitched for my hearing. Then I gradually lost more and more of my central vision.’
15 years ago, Steele decided to try a cochlear implant to improve the one sense that she still could. ‘It dramatically improved my hearing. I walked out of the hospital the day the implant was activated, and I heard a “chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp”. And I turned to my husband and said: what the heck is that?’
Dreaming of an event to connect those already birding by ear and to encourage the blind community to try it, she approached two other birders who were blind, Jerry Berrier and Donna Posont, and Cat Fribley, Executive Director of Birdability, a U.S. non-profit that advocates for inclusive access to birding. Together they developed an event that celebrated birding by ear and also introduced it to hundreds who had never tried.
On the opposite side of the world, Anthony Paton, Deputy Director of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and Dinokeng, had been thinking along similar lines. A serious birder for three decades, Paton had long been fascinated by sound.
‘Top birders rely heavily on calls’ he says. ‘Years ago, I ran a challenge for a bird club: one team could only count what they saw, the other only what they heard. It was a tie. At an advanced level, the listening team would have won.’
That intellectual exercise became personal when Paton met Nickus de Vos, a Pretoria-born sound engineer who had lost his sight but found birding to be a way of reclaiming the wild.
‘A ranger friend challenged me to log 100 bird species in a year, just by sound,’ says de Vos. ‘It changed my life. In Kruger Park, I recorded 50 species in a week. Now, I step outside in the mornings, and before breakfast I’ve already identified ten birds in my garden. Once you start hearing them, you can’t unhear them.’
Wanting to enhance de Vos’s love of birding, Paton reached out to Charl Pretorius who holds an annual Birding Bash at his Kwalata Game Lodge.
‘We’ve been part of this area for decades,’ says Pretorius. ‘We started with youth camps, then expanded into eco-tourism and community programmes. Last year, an organisation for the blind in Hammanskraal approached us. They were keen to see how they could engage their community in nature.’
Pretorius – also known as Maredi, meaning ‘the one who gets things done’ in the local Tswana language – is clearly a man of purpose. Thanks to his initiative, the Kwalata Birding Bash in 2024 welcomed its first blind participants, including de Vos.
Daniel Cleary and Nickus de Vos are awarded prizes at the Kwalata Birding Bash.
The first songs
For blind US birder Jerry Berrier, birding by sound began in a classroom. ‘I studied biology in college, but the professor didn’t know what to do with me during lab sessions. He gave me Cornell University bird sound records and said: ‘learn these. At the end of the semester I’ll take you for a walk. Your grade will depend on what you can identify.” That gift shaped my entire life.’
Donna Posont’s journey in sound began later in life, sparked by a desire to share nature with others.
‘I went back to school for environmental studies so I could teach blind children about the outdoors. During an internship, I found toy birds that played calls. I used them to teach kids how to identify species by ear. It worked so well that I started monthly birding-by-ear sessions for adults and children. That was in 2009. I’ve been doing it ever since.’
In South Africa, de Vos remembers his first big event vividly.
‘I joined a team at Kwalata’s annual Birding Bash. Our rule was strict—we could only log species by sound, while other teams could use both sight and sound. We recorded 117 species and placed fourth overall, missing third place by just two species. That was it. I was hooked.’
Myth and skill
One of the first misconceptions blind birders confront is the belief that they have superhuman hearing.
‘Our ears aren’t better than anyone else’s,’ Berrier explains. ‘We simply practice more. It’s like exercising a muscle.’
Paton agrees: ‘Listening is a skill you develop. You learn to separate layers of sound, just as a sound engineer like Nickus can isolate the bass line in a complex track. In the bush, you might have a Hadeda Ibis screaming nearby, frogs croaking in a pond, and leaves rustling in the wind. Yet somewhere in that noise is the faint call of a warbler, and you train yourself to hear it.’
Listening and studying individual birdsongs is a rewarding pastime for blind birders.
Technology in birding
Modern tools have made this process easier and more accessible. In the United States, birders use Merlin Bird ID to record and identify calls on the spot, while apps like Larkwire provide practice exercises that gradually sharpen recognition skills.
In South Africa, de Vos faced an additional hurdle: screen accessibility.
‘I use software that reads text aloud on my phone, but many apps aren’t designed for that. After a lot of trial, I found Sasol eBirds works best—it lets me quickly search for a bird and play its call without extra steps. Roberts’ app recently became more accessible too. These tools allow me to bird independently.’
Technology is also changing how groups interact. During the Blind Birdathon, some participants went out with sighted companions, while others birded alone in their backyards, using apps to confirm calls.
Feeling welcome in the wild
Pretorius sees enormous potential for the blind community. Dinokeng is only 50 kilometres from Pretoria. It’s flat, accessible, and close to medical facilities—important for visitors with various disabilities. We want to develop blind birding as a permanent programme, host regular training sessions, and even sponsor participants to join events like our Birding Bash. This isn’t just a tourism venture; it’s about changing who feels welcome in our wild spaces.’
Paton highlights an important point, particularly in South Africa. ‘Nickus is lucky in a way in that he’s relatively affluent in terms of our general population. I think we need to start finding ways to sponsor people who have limited resources.’
When the next Birding Bash is held, traditionally the last weekend in February, Paton hopes to have identified more people from the blind community who would benefit from the experience, and make it possible for them to attend. ‘The attendees from Empowerment for the Blind expressed great admiration for Nickus on that day, and expressed the hope that perhaps they could join the same birding route as him’.
Why blind birding matters
For those involved, birding by ear is more than a pastime. It is a way to reclaim independence, to experience nature on equal terms, and to feel part of something larger.
Many blind people don’t often leave urban routes,’ says Posont. ‘Birding gets us outside, exercising, breathing fresh air, and learning. Once people try it, they want more.’
De Vos agrees. ‘In the bush, some people say, “There’s nothing out there, just impala”. But for a birder, there’s never nothing. Every outing is full of surprises, every sound is a discovery. Birding changed the way I live my life.’
For Pretorius, the impact is wider still.
‘This is about access and dignity. If we can make birding inclusive here, why not across South Africa? Why not everywhere?’
The next Blind Birdathon is tentatively set for 3-4 May, 2026.
The next Birding Bash is traditionally held on the last weekend in February.
For more information reach out to:
Cat Fribley, Executive Director of Birdability, USA – cat@birdability.org
Anthony Paton, Deputy Director of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and Dinokeng, South Africa – anthony.paton@gauteng.gov.za
