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On February 15th, CLCC collaborated with the Black Wing Coalition and Sierra Club CT to organize a Black History Bird Walk as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count. The event took place at the Ancient Burying Ground in Downtown Hartford, where fourteen participants gathered to pay their respects at a memorial dedicated to African Americans buried in unmarked graves.

Alycia Jenkins, the Campaign Organizer for Sierra Club CT and a local resident, highlighted the significance of this burial ground in Connecticut’s African American history. “There are Black people in Connecticut today. There have always been Black people here, both enslaved and free, even before Connecticut formally became a state.”

After a moment of silence, the group made their way to the nearby riverfront area for birdwatching, having previously spotted a Cooper’s Hawk circling the cemetery. Vanessa Daye, CLCC Community Conservation Coordinator, emphasized the importance of documenting urban wildlife in Downtown Hartford. “There is a beautiful vibrancy in Downtown Hartford that often goes overlooked. By documenting the wildlife here, we are also honoring the deep, enduring connection between the Black community and this land.”

Ade Ben-Sal, an avid birder with the Black Wing Coalition and a paleontology graduate student at SCSU, identified the birds as attendees called out their observations. The most abundant species observed was the American Herring Gull, with 80 individuals resting on the frozen river that afternoon. It was a chilly day for waterfowl, and only one duck, an unidentified species from the Aythya genus (common in North America), was spotted.

As the attendees walked over to a café for hot chocolate afterward, one participant remarked, “This is the most Black people I’ve ever seen at a birding event!” This comment underscores the importance of fostering inclusive spaces for people of color and other marginalized communities to engage in outdoor recreational activities together.

While walking less than one mile, the group observed over 230 individual birds and logged eleven species present in Hartford for the Great Backyard Bird Count. As of this writing, 686 bird species have been recorded across 51 states and provinces in the U.S. Connecticut ranks 28th, with 141 species observed in our state during the four-day period. Visit EBird.org to view the variety of bird species observed in the United States and around the world over the weekend.