Meet the Sarasota teen whose bird project is headed to a national magazine

Sophia Haakman is something of a bird whisperer.

The 16-year-old Pineview School student doesn’t just notice Sarasota’s birds. She wants to understand how they live, what they need to survive and whether efforts to protect them are actually working. 

That curiosity recently led her to design a bird monitoring project that documented the impact of local habitat restoration efforts — work that soon will be featured in Birding, the American Birding Association’s flagship magazine focused on bird identification and conservation. The article is tentatively scheduled to appear in the September issue.

Sophia developed the project while volunteering with Sarasota Bay Watch, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the local ecosystems. There, she has spent hundreds of volunteer hours helping to remove invasive plants, restore native habitats and inspire other young people to connect with the environment. 

“She is constantly surprising you,” said Ronda Ryan, Sarasota Bay Watch executive director, who called Sophia a mentor and change-maker, always ensuring her work benefits others. “She is very quick to get down, pick up bugs, pick up crabs, pick up any little thing, [while] some of the others don’t have their eyes open,” Ryan said. “Her windows are open all the time.”

Whether she’s volunteering at Jim Neville Marine Reserve or strolling through her neighborhood, Sophia, who is heading into her senior year, told Suncoast Searchlight she feels a deep sense of attachment to Sarasota’s unique bird populations.

“You can’t help but notice them,” Sophia said. “It’s like how when you get a new car, you start seeing it everywhere. Once you learn something about the environment, it’s very hard to forget when you start noticing it around.”

Sophia’s interest in nature extends well beyond spotting species in the wild.

While juggling AP classes, extracurricular activities and a busy social life, she not only serves as a youth leader with Sarasota Bay Watch, but is active with the Sarasota Audubon Society, the Suncoast Science Center/Faulhaber Fab Lab and the Florida Young Birders Club. She even plays cello with the Sarasota Youth Orchestras and received a scholarship to attend a Chinese-language immersion program in Taiwan.

With over 850 volunteer hours across those various organizations, her community connections empower her to use her passion for public and environmental benefit. Sophia has an army of support behind her, and she’s not slowing down anytime soon.

“Birding, though she’s very passionate about it, is just one aspect of the million things that she does,” said Sarasota Audubon President Sara Reisinger. “When she’s passionate about something, she’s like a dog on a bone. She will make things happen that are, by and large, extremely positive for the community. She really is one of the most impressive, not just children, people I’ve ever met in my life.”

From raising butterflies to raising awareness

Sophia’s passion for conservation and nature started at a young age. She remembers raising butterflies at 7 years old, and reading a field guide that shifted her interest to birds a few years later.

Noticing this passion take form, her parents took Sophia out in nature frequently. Her mother, Irene, said her daughter found an attachment to Celery Fields, not just because of its diverse environment, but because there were volunteers she could learn from.

As an educator, Irene said she has enjoyed watching her daughter turn that curiosity into action, building relationships throughout the local conservation community and being involved in many of the organizations she still works with today. 

“In the same way as everybody else who has helped her in the community, our job has been to say yes,” Irene Haakman told Suncoast Searchlight. “Sometimes it’s all you can do.”

As she grew older, Sophia looked for ways to turn her fascination with local wildlife and birds — including her favorite,the Chuck-will’s-widow — into action.

Sarasota Bay Watch, for example, partners with the county to help restore local ecosystems by removing invasive species and replacing them with native plants. 

But Sophia wanted to do more with the results. She approached Ryan with an idea for a new project tracking how Bay Watch’s efforts improved habitats for birds. Sophia consulted with researchers and experts on how to execute the study, and Bay Watch helped her conduct monthly bird counts with a fleet of volunteers on kayaks.

Her bird monitoring project found that local species thrived in areas Bay Watch had restored when compared to areas it hadn’t. Ryan said Sophia elevated Bay Watch’s work from simply removing invasive species to proving how it gave bird populations the food and resources needed to survive.

Sophia wrote an article detailing her bird monitoring project — that’s the one that will be featured in a fall issue of Birding. Achieving feats like this at such a young age has given Ryan a new perspective on the importance of Bay Watch’s youth leadership program.

“I have learned so many things from her, and No. 1 is, kids aren’t always what you think they are, and they have a lot more than you might give them credit for,” Ryan said. “It’s just her eyes being so open and so locked into the things in front of her.”

For Sophia, joining Bay Watch, which typically relies upon about 25 to 35 volunteers, was her first big step into community engagement upon entering high school.

“Being in Sarasota Bay Watch has really allowed me to open up as a person,” she said. “I would not be where I am right now without people in the community helping me and supporting me.”

That transformation didn’t happen overnight. 

Though Sophia’s connection with the local environment came naturally to her, engaging the community to share that passion did not. She is socially reserved and started her work with local organizations as a shy, yet committed, volunteer.

As recently as eighth grade, class presentations used to “terrify” her.

But last year, she spoke out at a Sarasota County Commission meeting alongside Sarasota Audubon members against a proposed housing project near the Celery Fields bird sanctuary. Though the developer, D.R. Horton, is still pushing for approval, the plan has been repeatedly rejected by commissioners.

“Now, I can go to the county commission and talk for two minutes,” she said. “I’m still nervous, but I can do it, and that’s a whole different story. I can speak in front of hundreds of people, and that’s something that I wasn’t able to do before.”

Her work with local organizations made her realize that the more people involved with supporting the environment, the bigger the impact. Sophia knew that the importance of bringing the community together outshined any personal anxieties she may have about public speaking.

Ryan and Reisinger have witnessed Sophia’s transformation firsthand. Ryan said Sophia has spoken at fundraisers with more than 400 people, and Reisinger noted her ability to effectively communicate her ideas through presentations and speeches at Audubon events.

“She really lights up when she talks about these topics,” Reisinger said. “She knows more than most of the adults involved in Audubon about all of the things that are occurring in our area with conservation. She really is quite a little expert.”

Creating opportunities for herself and others

Her community impact extends beyond Sarasota Bay Watch. 

A few years ago, Sophia had tried to regularly attend events hosted by the Florida Young Birders Club. But the long drive made it difficult to stay involved. 

Rather than give up, Sophia — then 13 years old — reached out to the club’s founder and coordinator, Jim McGinity, about creating a chapter closer to home. Those conversations eventually led to the creation of the Manasota chapter, giving young birders in the Sarasota and Manatee area a place to connect without making the trip to Tampa. 

Initiatives like these put “stars in our eyes,” Haackman’s mother told Suncoast Searchlight.

“She just persisted because it wasn’t just for her to do it, but she wanted other kids to be able to do it as well,” Irene Haakman said. “She doesn’t keep it to herself, it’s like there’s like this outward sharing of the things that she loves. That’s really what I’ve just been amazed at, how much of a community connector she is.”

Sophia also volunteers as a bird naturalist at the Sarasota Audubon Society, a chapter of a national organization dedicated to protecting bird habitats. There, she walks around the wetlands of Celery Fields to help the public identify different species. Sophia also creates activities and programming for young birders, Reisinger said.

Her passion and versatile knowledge, Reisinger said, makes her the perfect steward for connecting education with community engagement.

Sophia said she was first exposed to Audubon in fourth grade and has been hooked ever since. She remembers falling in love with the nature of Celery Fields, where Audubon is located. Welcoming staff and volunteers made her feel at home.

“As soon as I could, I immediately started volunteering there because I wanted to do that for other people as well,” Sophia said. “I wanted to have them have the same experience that I did with volunteers.”

To engage youth across programs, Sophia said she plays to each person’s strengths. They don’t have to love picking up bugs or removing invasive plants. She’s gotten some of her friends, who are artists or photographers, involved with nature and birds. They find their own ways to connect with nature, whether it’s through sketching or capturing blink-and-you-miss-it moments.

“To actually become a higher-level bird watcher, you have to understand how birds interact with their environment,” Sophia said. “Or it can go the other way around, because birds have so many different functions in the environment, they can’t learn about the environment without learning about birds. That’s what is so attractive about bird watching to some of these kids.”

Off to college and beyond

Because of Sophia’s impressive resume, she says there’s little time to take a step back.

Luckily, Sophia said she doesn’t view her extracurriculars as work and that, if not volunteering, she’d likely still spend her days watching for birds or playing the cello.

“It doesn’t feel like a responsibility,” she said. “It feels like I’m doing something for myself.”

As a rising senior, Sophia is now exploring colleges. And as a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, she is open to institutions in either country. Wherever she lands, she said, she plans to major in environmental studies and eventually find work in biophilic design, which would allow her to help make cities more eco-friendly.

That career path is fitting for a student so knowledgeable of the role the environment plays in sustaining populations, Ryan said.

“She’s a great example of what you hope the next generation would be like,” Ryan said. “That there would be people that have that natural and environmental sensitivity, but then also back it up with intelligence and knowledge to move forward.”

As she weighs her options, those who have watched her grow in Sarasota know they won’t have her around forever.

“I can tell you she’s gonna be missed when she goes to college,” Irene said. “She’s set up the systems so they’re going to continue, but people are going to notice Sophia is not here anymore.”

Clinton Engelberger is a contributor for Suncoast Searchlight. Email Clinton at clintonengelberger@gmail.com.