A Cattle Farm in Alabama Draws Birders for a Spectacle of Kites

From the Spring 2026 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

I’ve spent nearly half a century enthralled by birds, ever since discovering them in middle school back in the 1970s. I grew up in the Midwest, in the sprawling city of Columbus, Ohio. I remember sitting at my little desk in Mr. Entsminger’s science class in the 7th grade, when I did a book report on the majestic Philippine Eagle. From that moment on, I became fascinated by birds, which really brought the world of nature into view for this little shy, urban kid with a giant Afro nearly twice the size of my face.

Now, as a Black birder, writer, and professional wildlife photographer, I am encouraged by the growing interests in birds among people of color who seem to be seeing birds for the very first time in their lives. Over the past few years, birding organizations and groups that encourage Black birders like myself have sprung up all across the country. The most well-known initiative was started in 2020 by a small group of Black bird enthusiasts who are also scientists, called Black Birders Week, that’s typically held during the last week of May. It is a nationwide event to encourage Black nature enthusiasts to get outdoors, experience Black Joy, and watch birds. There are many other like-minded groups and organizations that offer outings all year long, including the In Color Birding group in Philadelphia, Wisconsin’s BIPOC Bird Club out of Madison, and the Urban Bird Collective in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Urban Bird Collective just started a new chapter in Duluth, Minnesota, where I live now.

These flourishing organizations are making birding cool, and now there are many more Black birders looking for welcoming, safe places to enjoy birds. One such place is the Joe Farm, a Black-owned family farm in Hale County, Alabama. The Joe Farm is located in the Black Belt region of Alabama. The name “Black Belt” refers both to the richness of the region’s soil and the significant cultural history of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples of the area. In 2023, the Black Belt was recognized as a National Heritage Area of the South by the U.S. National Park Service. 

The Joe family has been raising beef cattle for almost 100 years. In recent years, the family has ventured into an additional source of revenue with ecotourism, strangely enough just doing the traditional farming chores they’ve always done.

One day Christopher Joe, one of the sons who helps to run the family farm, got a call from his father Cornelius Joe (everybody calls him “Papa Joe”). He wanted to know what kind of birds were following his tractor. 

“What are these hawks,” Papa Joe asked his son, “swooping down from the sky into the mowed grass, feeding on something?” 

Little did Christopher Joe and his dad, along with the rest of his siblings and mother, know that these swooping birds would be part of an entirely new business for their farm—causing people to travel from all over the country, and even the world, to visit their family’s land.—Dudley Edmondson

The Joe Family Farming Tradition

Christopher Joe is a third-generation Angus cattle farmer from Newbern, Alabama, about an hour’s drive south from Tuscaloosa. When he’s not farming, Christopher Joe is also a district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency under the federal U.S. Department of Agriculture that helps farmers promote soil health, improve water quality, and enhance wildlife habitat.

The Joe Farm raises 60 to 70 head of black Angus cattle on 200 acres. Christopher Joe’s lineage on the farm goes back to the 1870s, on his father Cornelius Joe’s side of the family. “I saw old census records showing my great-great-grandfather, Arthur Joe, owned the land,” Christopher Joe says. “His name is on our church cornerstone back home.”

Both Christopher Joe and his father have extensive backgrounds in education, agriculture, and conservation, and the family farm is a continuation of putting that knowledge and love for nature into practice.—Dudley Edmondson

Cattle Farming Meets Ecotourism

“Our first [birds and nature] tour was in February of 2019. I asked Dad, ‘Hey, let’s try this thing about doing tours,’ and he was all for it. Because he is a former teacher, he thought it was a great educational opportunity.

“We wouldn’t be where we are right now without his blessing. We are still doing farming; the cows are still here, but I just added the tourism component to it. We’re getting birders to come into [Alabama] from all over the country just to see our Swallow-tailed and Mississippi Kites and other birds. It’s so nice to have nesting Yellow-billed Cuckoos and Prothonotary Warblers here, in addition to Pileated Woodpeckers. We actually found them on one of our tours. There are so many other nesting birds on the property.

“Sometimes with our tours, we have educational groups of all Black students. They get to see me, a young Black guy that went to school, still has his father in his life, and we work together on this family land. They get to learn a bit about entrepreneurship, too, and how our business works. The kids’ faces are like, this is somebody that actually owns this place and lives here. They’re not just a farmhand. Us being in that position, I mean, that’s right up my alley. I can show them, hey I grew up playing in the outdoors. I just parlayed this into something that people will pay us to come and experience.

“We had a Black mothers and daughters group out of Birmingham. They heard about me through social media. They said, ‘Chris, you make us feel so safe.’ They said, ‘This is helping us by letting them see a Black male figure with his dad here, and they’re getting along.’

“It’s important to me to be able to be this type of role model. I feel like this birding thing we started is my task to do for the next generation.”—Christopher Joe

The Kites Are Coming

“I think Dad first started seeing [the kites] around 2018 and 2019. I don’t know what led them to our farm, but I feel like they kinda found us. I’d never seen them before then. I was like, ‘What type of bird is that?’ That’s kind of where our friends at Alabama Audubon helped. They were like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been watching y’all, we just couldn’t figure out how to connect.’

“I think more people around Newbern have opened up land that was for timber sales and started making wider open spaces. People are kind of getting out of timber, going back into the cattle market. I think that open pastureland basically attracts the kites. Mississippi and Swallow-tailed Kites start showing up in the general area in May.

“If I’m a kite flying above, looking for a place to eat but everything I see is the trees, I’m not landing. But if I start seeing these wide-open rectangles, I’ll pick that out ‘cause you have the habitat with plenty of insects. I don’t know if they can hear Dad’s tractor, but … not long after we start cutting hay, I mean it’s 25 minutes later and they are here. Their nesting area must be within earshot, because it doesn’t take long for them to get here. 

“We’re in a good area where there’s ideal habitat, but also there’s enough waterways with some pretty tall branch overhangs for the kites to roost and hunt from.”—Christopher Joe

Kites, Cows, and Conservation

“My management style has always been, how do we best manage the land for the benefit of the cattle? We don’t use any chemicals. We don’t spray. We don’t brush fence edges or anything like that. We reap the benefits for all the birds, because of the way we manage our cows.

“Things like rotational grazing, where we put cows in one area first. [Then] they poop and do everything in that area, creating natural fertilizer before going to the next [area]. That attracts insects, so you get the cattle egrets, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Eastern Meadowlarks—all out in the pastures with the cows.

“Me knowing the conservation side of stuff, we’re managing this field thinking about birds. If we’re gonna cut hay, we let the seed heads get up, certain birds like that. Then there’s millet, and other small grains. We made stream crossings in the pastures to where it makes shallow water. There are egrets and yellowlegs there now. 

“Having that conservation mind allows me to see the benefits of cattle to bird life.”—Christopher Joe

Species Decline and Feral Hogs

“In my area of the Black Belt, I’m seeing where invasive species are just squeezing the life out of the native birds. Feral hogs are a real big problem. I can take you to places where they root in at night. It looks like a construction crew with a backhoe has been tearing up the land, and I’ll see acres of it. They forage and pretty much eat everything.

“A lot of what I consider to be our anchor birds and plant species that hold native habitat together are disappearing. They’re being pushed out because all their habitat is being destroyed. Hog wallows uproot native plants, and a lot of these natural areas that once were intact are now swamps, and you get beavers in there changing the hydrology. Now that prime habitat is underwater. So that’s where we’re losing species.

“People ask, ‘How do you get the birds here?’ I say it just comes down to how you manage your land. If things want to stay on your property, they’ll stay. I’m a mad scientist. I can kind of experiment with what I’ve learned in conservation work on our farm, and it works.

“Mostly we see the benefit in the cattle that we raised, because the grass is better for them and the water is clean, because we only use well water from the property. The cattle have to be healthy in order to look good before going to market. It all goes back to management.

“Healthy cattle, healthy land, and healthy soil gives us our amazing variety of birds.”—Christopher Joe 

Go birding down on the Joe farm

The Joe Farm is located in Newbern, Alabama, about 50 miles south of Tuscaloosa. Christopher Joe offers tours throughout the year starting in late April, coinciding with the peak of spring bird migration in the region. Visitors have the option of exploring the land on a hayride or walking the six miles of trails.

Information about birding on the farm and scheduled events is on the farm website. As of spring 2026, tour pricing is $35 for adults and free for youth 16 and under. Interested birders can also contact Christopher Joe directly through a contact form on the website.

To see lists of birds seen on the farm, visit the Birds and Nature Tours eBird hotspot. To follow along with bird sightings and events on the farm, follow @birdsandnaturetours on Instagram or @birdsandnaturechannel on YouTube.

The Joe Farm will also participate in Alabama Audubon’s 6th annual Black Belt Birding Festival from July 31 to August 2.—Marc Devokaitis