JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In Washington, D.C., residents celebrated Indigenous People's Day by birdwatching on Roosevelt Island. Centuries before the island became a memorial to the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, it was home to Native Americans. Here's Sarah Y. Kim of member station WAMU.
SARAH Y KIM, BYLINE: On Roosevelt Island today, there were about two dozen people with cameras and binoculars.
MARIA-ELENA MONTERO: Oh, look at the heron flying. Oh, how gorgeous. They're so elegant.
KIM: Maria-Elena Montero is with the DC Bird Alliance, the local chapter of the National Audubon Society. She's leading the bird walk through Roosevelt Island, one of several pockets of nature in the nation's capital and home to a variety of birds, including this Carolina wren.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAROLINA WREN TWEETING)
KIM: That wren, which Montero says is making a warning call, can be tricky to hear. The birds keep their distance, and planes frequently drown out Montero and the sounds of nature.
MONTERO: I don't know. We call these iron-sided thrushes.
(LAUGHTER)
KIM: Montero has been birding all her life.
MONTERO: Birdwatching for me and being outside in nature is wellness. It's part of wellness.
KIM: Montero says you don't need deep scientific knowledge to call yourself a birder, and for Montero, it's a way to connect to the land's history. Native Americans, including the Piscataway people, lived here on Roosevelt Island centuries ago.
MONTERO: I wonder if the white-throated sparrow we saw - if it is not generations and generations just removed from its great-great-great-great-grandfather that some of the ancestral people saw as well.
KIM: As a Black woman, Montero says being near the water is special to her. Roosevelt Island is surrounded by the Potomac River, which was part of the Underground Railroad.
MONTERO: People came to freedom on this water. They saw some of the same birds.
KIM: And when guiding people on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman mimicked the sound of birds.
MONTERO: That's profound in that nature facilitated life.
KIM: Montero says it's important to stay connected to the lives of people who lived on the land before us.
MONTERO: They didn't just come here to enjoy Roosevelt Island and, oh, isn't it so pretty? They lived here. They lived off the land. They lived together with the birds.
KIM: Today, some of that connection to nature has been lost. There have been declines in common birds locally and across the country. She wants to protect the environment and wants to get more people excited about birds.
MONTERO: Then maybe you might make that leap to, what can I do? - 'cause I want to see that bird again. I want to be able to enjoy that bird again. I want my kids, my grandkids to enjoy that bird.
KIM: At the end of the walk, Montero tells the group what they saw - 20 different species of birds, including a golden-crowned kinglet, the white-throated sparrow and that Carolina wren. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Y. Kim on Roosevelt Island in Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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