About Me
There is a subversive thrill to feeding the birds and shouting "hello!" while brandishing an aggressively large camera and bag of dog food and monkey nuts. I am an autistic trans person, and visibly "Queer!", and as such, no stranger to stares and street harassment from passers by. My fascination with crows also directly ties into my autism: they are my "special interest": an autistic area of interest which goes beyond typical hobbies or activities and into the realm of obsession, sometimes described as hyperfixation.
But being treated as a bird oddity, the man who throws dog food and peanuts at crows all throughout Birmingham, is in many ways a reclaimation of the street harassment and violence I have faced, and certainly much more fun! To access the joys of my special interest, I have to embrace all of the road's frustrations. It's a scary, busy, noisy place for my autistic brain (particularly with the added worries of the perceptions of strangers), but my compulsion to see them, feed them, and especially talk to them empowers me to own my strangeness – embracing all of my awkardness and thus my autism too.
Crows let me be the man who shouts at crows in the road, instead of that "faggot," "batty boy," "queer," or "retard" over there.
My mission is to make crows – and thus joy – more visible in the daily lives of normal folk who aren't as obsessively interested. Birds force me to look up – both literally and figuratively. I hope that by showcasing these urban beauties, others may learn to find nature and mindfulness no matter where they are, as crows can be found just about anywhere in the world.