Beside me, 5 Hill staffers—sustained by complimentary doughnuts and lukewarm coffee—are grasping field glasses and straining to see the wren. In half an hour, they’ll head to their congressional workplaces for work, however for now they’re routing behind Tykee James, the 29-year-old ecological lobbyist who leads these month-to-month bird strolls. James thinks about the occasions to be a soft-power offensive—linking the federal government’s lobbyists to nature, hoping they’ll remember this sweet-faced wren when the time comes for their employers to vote.
From 9 to 5, James works as a lobbyist for the Wilderness Society, a nationwide not-for-profit that secures wild lands. But off the clock, his time is dedicated to birds. One of the District’s best-known birders, James is president of the DC chapter of the Audubon Society, the host of 2 bird-adjacent podcasts, a board member of numerous bird nonprofits, and cofounder of the yearly occasion series Black Birders Week. If you see a bird walk promoted in the District, opportunities are he’s leading it.
Wearing gray sweats and burgundy Allbirds tennis shoes, James moves our group around the Bartholdi Fountain, his field glasses strapped to a chest harness. He’s a whimsical character who utilizes words like “wonderfizzle” while regaling us with realities about birds. Spotting a flock of chimney swifts, he points skyward and informs the group that these birds look like “cigars with wings.” We view them for a minute, then James screams, “Let’s get kinetic!”—his method of prodding us to move along.
This wholesome occasion isn’t the majority of people’s concept of lobbying—there’s no Scotch and no smoky back room. As we meander through the gardens, James doesn’t as soon as discuss the numerous expenses he’s attempting to advance—the Environmental Justice for All Act, the Reconciliation in Place Names Act, the Outdoors for All Act—and hardly says anything about work. “There’s no policy ask,” he informs me later on. “I let the birds do all the talking.” But he yields that “there’s definitely a follow-up call,” where he and staffers talk shop.
“It’s a unique approach,” says Shane Trimmer, legal director for Congressman Jared Huffman. Trimmer has actually been on a lots or two bird strolls considering that James started leading them in 2019. “My email is currently blasting me like a fire hose from a whole lot of people trying to flag my attention,” he says—and much of it won’t make an impression. “But if I see an email from Tykee, I’m going to be like, ‘Oh, I love Tykee, I’ve gotta see what he’s got to say.’ ”
It’s important to have Hill staffers excited to take your calls, however the policy effect is harder to trace. In Trimmer’s case, his employer is already an ecologist. But Trimmer still believes the strolls make a distinction. “With these soft-power approaches, a lot of it is subconscious,” he says. “Maybe because I’m birding in the morning, I’m more likely to spend time trying to craft a solution when I otherwise wouldn’t have.”
That’s why James woke up prior to dawn today, getting Dunkin’ and cycling from his English basement in Brightwood Park to the Botanic Garden; he’s providing these staffers a significant experience of nature, hoping it will echo throughout their day. “You know, you can see 11 percent more birds if you bend down!” James calls out, and the group kneels dutifully. Crouched on a stone bridge above a clear stream, James appears to have these staffers simply where he desires them: down on their knees prior to nature, ready to head to work.
At the Wilderness Society, James explains his policy focus as “equitable access to nature.” This suggests defending efforts such as wheelchair availability in parks, green space in metropolitan areas, and transit-to-trails financing. In addition to these facilities concerns, he’s interested in taking down the cultural and mental difficulties to individuals taking pleasure in the outdoors. “There’s this barrier of not only intimidation but of just not knowing what’s out there,” he says.
James understands that feeling firsthand. When he was a high-school senior in Philadelphia, he wasn’t thinking about nature—it didn’t appear pertinent to his life. But he took a job as an ecological teacher to make additional money for a bike and a phone. In that function, James would knock on doors to talk with next-door neighbors about setting up rain barrels and home gardens. That experience altered him.
For something, it was how he discovered birds. “This environmental-educator role was taught by two really cool nerds,” he says, “and in our first lesson, everyone was assigned a bird to look up and talk about.” James got the belted kingfisher, a stubby overload bird with a thick expense and belt-like markings. The next week, he was walking to work when he saw one leaping off a cattail and crossing a close-by creek. “That was the first time that looking at something on paper came to life in front of my eyes,” he says. “And I was like, Yo, I want a lot of other people to feel this, too.”
The job’s political measurement likewise resonated with James. He was arranging in an under-resourced location whose homeowners are mainly Black, and he liked linking individuals to nature who didn’t constantly feel it was for them. Today, James stays enthusiastic about including individuals of color in the outdoors, most especially through his deal with Black Birders Week. This yearly occasion started in 2020, after a viral video revealed a white lady calling the polices on a Black man enjoying birds in Central Park. James was talking about the occurrence in a group text, saying that the Black experience shouldn’t be comprehended simply in regards to injury—which nature is an important part of Black identity, too. The group chose to launch the weeklong series, which has actually considering that ignited, motivating shows around the world.
As an example, James discusses Harriet Tubman–themed bird strolls on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which was as soon as part of the Underground Railroad. A bird guide and a historian have actually collaborated to reveal individuals “what it meant to traverse this land without trails, in secret at night,” James says. Apparently, Tubman—who would in some cases mimic bird contacts us to interact discreetly with flexibility hunters—felt deeply linked to animals. James does, too. “I think about European starlings,” he says. “Both of our ancestors were put on ships and taken across the Atlantic against our wills—and now we are here today, just trying to adapt, trying to thrive.”
History is one method to engage the general public with birds, however James chooses being a ham. Throughout our walk, he calls yellow-rumped warblers “yumps” and “butterbutts” and consistently describes walking as “taking the shoelace express.” His pouch of father jokes is endless. At one point, he spies a house sparrow, then quips to a Senate staffer, “Maybe we’ll see a Senate sparrow later.”
James’s present flock of federal government employees is an earnest and excited lot. They easily share bird realities—a group of sparrows is called a “host,” I learn—and they appear eager to attempt birding by themselves. James advises they go to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, though he’s incensed that it’s not available to “people with different walking abilities.” Then a bird flies overhead. “Pay attention to its shape and behavior,” James recommends as we have problem with recognition. “Color is subjective because of the sun.” Shane Trimmer is the one who resolves it—his lots of bird strolls have actually settled.
As 9 o’clock nears, the staffers peel towards Independence Avenue, headed to their office complex down the street. James is going to work, too—he’s about to attend to the DC Council in assistance of an expense mandating bird-safe products in brand-new workplace and property towers. (Since then, that expense has actually ended up being law, possibly conserving countless birds from deadly crashes.)
Later, James will call a few of the staffers on today’s walk to attract momentum for numerous expenses—however their passage isn’t how he specifies success. “The very important work that needs to be done,” he says, “is building a critical mass of people that are willing to act on behalf of the birds, and the forest, and the parks, and each other.” So if he has actually influenced some interest for birds today, the walk deserved it.
“One of the things I’ve found is that everybody has a story about birds,” James says. “It can be the robin that greets them in their garden, or the cardinal that they see on their commute to work, or their strange grandma who goes out birding in the dead of winter.” Because of this, he discovers birds a perfect entrance to environmentalism. “So part of what I do is make space for people to talk about birds. It’s my passion—using birds to inspire folks to join me in my advocacy.”
This short article appears in the March 2023 problem of Washingtonian.
