Introduction
Jason Ward is an American naturalist, birder, and activist. He is the host of the 2019 TV documentary series Birds of North America produced by Topic.com.
Early life
Ward was born and raised in Bronx, New York. He has five siblings. He described seeing a peregrine falcon eating a pigeon when he was 14, which was one of the events that raised his interest in birds. He later moved to Atlanta and worked in a mortgage job. There he learned about the Atlanta Audubon Society, and starting joining their bird walks. Eight months later he started leading these bird walks. He also worked at Zoo Atlanta as an education instructor. He is now a community relations and outreach coordinator for the National Audubon Society.
Outreach work
Ward started a bird identification game on Twitter called #TrickyBirdID. He tweets out pictures of birds and participants have to guess what species it is. After the reveal he explains how to identify the bird.
Through this Twitter game he caught the attention of Anna Holmes, who worked as an editorial director for Topic.com. This led to the series Birds of North America of which the first episode was released on March 17, 2019. The show regularly features Ward's brother, Jeffrey, who is also a birder. The documentary series aims to reach people who might not normally engage in conservation efforts and learn about natural history—in particular young people, people of color, and people who live in cities. Ward also aims to share birding as a therapeutic activity for people living in cities.
Ward's favourite bird is the Falco peregrinus (peregrine falcon).
Awards
- 2019 - The Alongside Wildlife Foundation Outreach Award