“On May 13, friends, community members, donors and partners gathered to celebrate the official opening of the river-friendly, newly expanded Fred W. Beasley River Academy at Paradise Creek Nature Park in Portsmouth. On this warm, bluebird spring day, award-winning Black birder, avian ecologist and PhD student Lauren Pharr led a sold out, pre-ceremony birding tour of the Park before kicking off the Elizabeth River Project’s Urban Nature Lecture Series with a presentation focused on promoting green space equity and inclusion…”