Between rotting piles of yesterday’s cheesesteaks and Styrofoam containers, Brian “BQ” Quindlen stands, grinning.  One man’s trash has become another man’s seagull –watching treasure, writes Oona Goodin-Smith for philly.com.

Quindlen, a fifth-grade teacher at Bethel Springs Elementary School in Garnet Valley, brings avian education and bird-watching (or birding) to his students at Bethel Springs, taking them out into nature, from a landfill to the woods.

“You spend your life advocating for wildlife, and people are out there looking for Pokemon in the real world, when there are incredible animals right in front of us here,” he said.

The school’s nature club is a miniature version of Quindlen’s growing Garnet Valley Trailblazers summer camp. For the last seven years, campers and volunteers have tended to the trail behind the school) and documented via conservation websites the 127-and-counting bird species they see.  Especially notable birds, like the Mandarin Duck spotted in Delaware County or a snowy owl in Port Richmond, make it to social-media celebrity.

Quindlen  travels the country, delivering talks on avian conservation. Come this fall, he’ll have a craft beer named after his Instagram account, @birdingwithbq, at Bald Birds Brewing, located in — of course — Audubon, Pa.

Read more about Brian Quindlen here.

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