Birding as Joy, Protest, and Collective Liberation with Sam DeJarnett

In this episode of the Bird Joy Podcast, we’re joined by Sam DeJarnett, creator and host of the Always Be Birdin’ Podcast, for a powerful conversation about joy, resistance, and collective liberation through birding. Sam shares her journey into birding through wildlife rehabilitation and her experiences with exclusion in traditional birding spaces. These experiences pushed her to build something new rather than walk away.

We explore how birding can serve as protest and community care, how dominant narratives in conservation have excluded Black and Brown birders, and what becomes possible when knowledge is shared horizontally rather than through gatekeeping. Sam also unpacks her mycelium metaphor for community, offering a vision of birding spaces as interconnected networks where supporting one another strengthens the whole.

This episode centers on birding as joy, birding as resistance, and birding as a tool for imagining more inclusive, liberatory futures, all wrapped up in a fun and thoughtful Bird Joy Lightning Round that captures Sam’s philosophy and heart.

BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin 

In Color Birding Club