Danielle Belleny

Wildlife Biologist and Co-Organizer of #BlackBirdersWeek

Landscape featuring Danielle Belleny hiking the Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park.

Danielle Belleny is a wildlife biologist known for co-organizing the first #BlackBirdersWeek, which ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The event came in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and Christian Cooper’s encounter with a racist woman in Central Park, both of which occurred on May 25, 2020. Danielle was part of a group chat that included a small number of black scientists who discussed the recent acts of racism and decided to do something about it. Danielle suggested they launch an Instagram account, and she offered to manage it.

I ran the group’s Instagram a little less than a year, maybe 9–10 months. I was just trying to organize and keep our heads on straight. I had some connections from my past, like Audubon Society, eBird, and Cornell Lab, and they reached out to us and became part of #BlackBirdersWeek.”

Portrait of Danielle Belleny and her spark bird, the Painted Bunting. Illustrated by Daniel J. Middleton.

Danielle Elizabeth Belleny was born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 8, 1994. As a child, she was passionate about nature. She enjoyed picking out snails from garden plants, chasing lizards, and creating personal ant colonies. On occasion, Danielle also helped her mother remove spiders from the house, and she did so gently. When she was three years old, her father retired from the Air Force, and the family moved to San Antonio, Texas. Her grandparents lived not far away in Austin on 14 acres that included dense woods. Danielle recalled spending several weeks in Austin during the summer exploring her grandparents’ property in her quest to make discoveries in nature.

Up until the third grade, Danielle attended Village Parkway, a private school in San Antonio. She was homeschooled through fifth grade and returned to public school for her middle grades. When she attended Sandra Day O’Connor High School, she pursued a career in veterinary medicine through volunteer work. After visiting the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, she changed her mind. Her siblings had obtained degrees from the University of Houston, so she decided to follow suit. But she tired of the biology courses and the general path she had taken. Her dad helped her restructure, and they mapped out a new direction centered on wildlife management at Texas A&M University–Kingsville.

Texas A&M University–Kingsville campus.

It was at A&M in South Texas that Danielle got “hooked” into birding, as she put it. The diversity of birds grabbed her attention, and she realized she was on the right path. As her passion for birds and wildlife blossomed, Danielle aided graduate students in their studies. She became a graduate student also but left A&M to attend Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. Like A&M in the south, Tarleton State was situated in a middle-of-nowhere town, this time in the north. Danielle studied northern bobwhite—or Virginia quail—while pursuing her master’s degree. After graduation, Danielle passed up opportunities she deemed compromises, such as consulting on pipeline projects. She eventually spent a year with the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission and is now working as a wildlife biologist for Plateau Land & Wildlife Management in Austin, Texas.

• Where you can find Danielle Belleny

  Twitter: @bellzisbirding

  Instagram: @bellzisbirding

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This article appears in 12 Modern Black Birders.

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