May 24-30, 2026 is National Black Birders Week, and birders and visitors across New York’s Adirondack region are excited to participate!
As part of our local Adirondack Black Birders Week Celebration on Saturday, May 30, the Adirondack Diversity Initiative and John Brown Lives! are honored to host a special speaking event featuring renowned ornithologist, naturalist, and author Dr. J. Drew Lanham.
- What: Adirondack Black Birders Celebration: A Conversation with Dr. J. Drew Lanham
- When: Saturday, May 30, 2026 at 6:00 p.m.
- Where: The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, New York
- Cost: $10 suggested donation
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lecture and conversation will take place from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. followed by a reception and book sale from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Dr. Lanham’s books available for purchase include The Home Place, Sparrow Envy, and Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves.
Registration Opens Soon
About Dr. J. Drew Lanham
A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. Most recently, he is the author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. Lanham is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.
More Adirondack Black Birders Week Happenings
Visit the Adirondack Black Birders Week Celebration website for more happenings on Saturday, May 30, 2026 at John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, New York, including bird walks, workshops, a talk by Dr. J. Drew Lanham, and more.
The Adirondack Diversity Initiative is a program of ANCA. Thank you to John Brown Lives! for co-hosting this special event.
