Stuart Wells is a lifelong lover of nature, but birding remains a bit of a mystery.
Walking through the Portland Audubon Society’s 172-acre sanctuary on the edge of Forest Park, Wells, the new executive director of the organization, acknowledged that he’s no expert birder himself. Raising his ear to the trees, he identified a Pacific wren by ear, but shrugged at the rest of the birdsong chorus in the woods.
“Looking at a bird makes you a birder, I agree with that, but there’s a whole other level,” Wells said, resting on a bench beside Balch Creek. Identifying multiple species by sight, let alone sound is like “a whole language,” he said.
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In May, the Portland Audubon Society officially named Wells as the new head of the organization. In June, the Indiana-born Wells moved to Portland from Phoenix, where he’d been living for the past 40 years, trading in the Southwestern desert for the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest.
In Phoenix, he worked for the Arizona Center for Nature Conservation at the Phoenix Zoo, before leaving to work on a doctorate in wildlife conservation resource management at the University of Arizona, which he’s expecting to finish soon.
At Portland Audubon, he will oversee one of the state’s preeminent environmental organizations at a time when outdoor recreation — and bird watching in particular — are more popular than ever.
The COVID-19 pandemic is often cited for re-popularizing and broadening the birding community, with the hobby reportedly seeing a surge in popularity in 2020 and 2021. Portland may have been ahead of the trend: Several new birding communities had already emerged in recent years, including Birdhers and the Feminist Bird Club, as well as the new Guero Bird Club, which is run by a local torta restaurant. General outdoor groups in town, including Wild Diversity and Outdoor Afro, also host regular bird walks.
In that company, the Portland Audubon Society represents the old guard: a 120-year-old nonprofit with a staff of roughly 50, an army of 500 volunteers, and reported net assets of nearly $10 million in 2020, its most recent available tax filing. Wells said the institutional status of his organization doesn’t mean it’s allergic to progress.
“We’re not settling in; in fact we’re looking forward to seeing how we can increase community involvement,” he said. “We’re expanding our reach.”
Those efforts include local birding events with sliding scale prices, online classes and educational programs for children and adults. Upcoming events include excursions to Sauvie Island, Larch Mountain and Fernhill Wetlands, as well as a “casual birding” field trip, and more advanced classes on owls and other raptors.
The goal is to get people into birding who might have felt uninterested or excluded in the past, he said. And as the U.S. continues to face a reckoning over racism in its institutions, Wells said Portland Audubon is on its own “equity and inclusion journey.”
“There’s been some recognition that there is a little bit of racism that happens to certain ethnic groups when birding,” he said. “We know that that is out there, and as an organization we’re dedicated to opening the door for all people to enjoy birding and enjoy the outdoors.”
That goal is in step with the multi-pronged diversity, equity and inclusion mission of Portland Audubon’s neighbor, the Forest Park Conservancy, which has been seeking ways to make more people feel safe exploring Portland’s sprawling urban wilderness. Across the region, outdoor organizations and land management agencies including the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and the National Park Service have undertaken similar efforts.
“People of color may have historically been persecuted, and sometimes bad things happen when they’re in the forest by themselves,” Wells said. “And it’s just human nature to be cautious in the forest, regardless of ethnicity, because there’s things that can eat you in a forest. So it’s basically a human evolutionary trait of survival to be cautious and a little bit apprehensive of the woods.”
But for Wells, who grew up camping in the woods of Indiana, the sheer joy of being immersed in nature overshadows any fear. Aside from boosting mental wellbeing and physical health, getting outside helps people develop a deeper connection with nature, which he said benefits plants, animals, streams and air – not to mention birds.
His theory is that the more you know about what a species needs to survive, the less likely you’ll be to condone something that leads to their demise. Simply being outside can lead to a greater respect of nature, as well as a better understanding of how our actions affect the many other creatures who live beside us, particularly birds, he said.
“Hopefully this interest rising in birds will help offset and at least provide more support for the kinds of actions that need to be done to preserve them,” Wells said.
The Portland Audubon Society is working on large-scale environmental efforts to protect local bird species (including preservation work in places like the Elliot State Forest and the central Oregon coast), but he said most of the organization’s energy is directed toward the local community, where conservation begins with people watching birds.
“Birds are always still here,” he said, the Pacific wren still chirping in the trees. “The great thing about it is that anybody can learn to bird — even me.”
— Jamie Hale
503-294-4077; jhale@oregonian.com; @HaleJamesB
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