Happy turkey day!

Seeing a bird for the holidays?

I am thankful for all you readers of Special Education Today. You're so tolerant of my meanderings about in the world of special education and disability. Shoot, I even get to drop posts about birding…and speaking of that, here’s another one!

During the Thanksgiving season, I suspect that for many people in the US, a reference to a “bird” probably evokes thoughts of a roasted turkey. Those birds are usually ultra-domesticated (some readers may object to the processes used in raising them), but there are wild ones around.

Meleagris gallopavo on the strut. Photo taken in Ontario, Canada, by Skip Russell, 2016, and shared under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

They’re really quite magnificent birds. I have heard people assert that Benjamin Franklin recommended the turkey as the national bird for the US, however, according to the Franklin Institute, that is a myth: “Although Benjamin Franklin defended the honor of the turkey against the bald eagle, he did not propose it become one of America’s most important symbols.”

Although the English Wikipedia entry for Thanksgiving lists eight, according to the World Population Review, 11 countries celebrate Thanksgiving or something similar. They are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Liberia, Netherlands, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, United Kingdom, and United States. I don’t know how many of them feature a bird or birds in their Thanksgiving traditions.

While I’m on the subject of birds, please remember the efforts by Birdability to make birding accessible to individuals with disabilities. As of this writing (as the phrase goes), 28 November 2024, that group offers > 50 videos on its YouTube channel, many of which could be useful for classroom instruction, at least four of which were added since my last reference to Birdability.

Also, note that Birdability has joined with the US National Audubon Society to generate a database (with a map) or the characteristics or features of birding sites that are accessible to individuals with disabilities. The database includes features such as length of trails, the of surface of the trail, availability of reserved parking, accessibility of toilets and facilities, and lots more. Learn more about Birdability Location Explorer at the Web site.

Although it’s not exactly about Thanksgiving, I recommend readers click through to Bird Note, which is an organization that produces media products about birds. Some people may have heard about Bird Note when their radios played productions such as “BirdNote Daily” or “BirdNote Presents.” The organization includes disabilities in the list of communities that it says matter to it…might be a good time to see how it does with accessibility, closed captioning, and other matters of concern to individuals with disabilities.

And one more thing: My long-time birding buddy, Dan H., sent me a link to an article that appeared in the Washington Post 27 October 2024. It’s relevant here: “Blind birders in tune with bird sounds, call themselves ‘bird brains’: ‘The world is designed for sighted people, but nature is a place where it’s okay to be blind,’ said Donna Posont, founder of Birding by Ear and Beyond.” Check it out!

Happy bird day!