Amid the horror of the Covid-19 pandemic, news reporters looking to focus on meager good news wherever they could find it discovered a bright spot — birdwatching!
Birdwatching has surged in popularity over the last year, from simple window feeders to outdoor excursions. The online database eBird reports a 37% increase in users documenting their sightings, and more than 2 million people used the Merlin Bird ID app in 2020. Kaitlyn Parkins is a senior conservationist biologist with New York City Audubon, which organizes bird-watching activities.
“I think folks are surprised at what they see once they start paying attention,” she says.
Parkins says, “Birdwatching is almost like a meditation, and I think people need that, especially right now.”
Part of the appeal is being able to bird-watch anywhere and in all seasons. It’s also a way to connect with others while maintaining social distance.
Social media has helped the hobby take flight and attract younger birdwatchers.
“I think we’ve gotten a lot more of a diverse audience in birding. Birding has been historically skewed older, and historically skewed white, and there are a lot of organizations, even pre-pandemic, that were really working on making birding more inclusive and more welcoming.”
And the hobby doesn’t have to be expensive. Just looking out your window or sitting quietly in your backyard counts.
“If you’re looking at birds, you are birding!” says Parkins.
She says if you want to increase the species you can see, invest in a pair of binoculars – and even those don’t have to be pricey.
Birdwatchers also emphasize being respectful of birds and keeping a safe distance from them.
Bird-watching popularity has been off the charts this past year. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, birders set a world record on May 9 for Global Big Day, an annual bird-spotting event. Participants using the lab’s eBird platform reported more than two million observations — the most bird sightings documented in a single day — and recorded 6,479 species.
At a time when humans are nervously tracking the spread of the new Delta variant of the virus as it seeps through communities and leaps across borders, new birders are finding relief in tracking the migratory patterns of birds instead.
None of us knows yet whether this new Delta variant is going to force us to once again quarantine, but we’re already back to masks and social distancing.
Have the lockdowns resulted in more abundant birds? Is our behavior changing theirs, making them bolder, louder, more present in our yards and parks, or is the birdsong just more audible because there’s less ambient roar from cars, overhead jets, construction?
Or is it we who have changed, taking more notice of birdlife now that our own lives have slowed?
When the lockdowns were in full force, birds appeared to be thriving with the dip in noise and light and air pollution, along with emptied-out parks and public gardens that are usually a crush of people and traffic congestion. Here in the United States, ravens normally on edge around their nests in Yosemite were more relaxed, even playful in the empty parking lots, and endangered Piping Plovers had the beaches to themselves.
The reduction in noise may have a more subtle but still beneficial effect. Birds sing in the early morning to mark their territory and attract mates. Their efforts, however, often coincide with the roar of early morning rush hour. A few years ago, scientists from the University of Florida found that noisy highways prevented Tufted Titmice and Northern Cardinals from hearing alarm calls from fellow birds, warning of dangerous predators in the area, putting them at greater risk of becoming prey.
The more enduring change may be in human behavior around birds. At the moment, most serious bird-watchers are not sashaying out to distant locations to spot a vagrant species or catch the big waves of migratory species passing through, but rather, observing more birdlife close to home. The American Bird Association, which calls the shots on ethical birding, advises: “Keep your eyes on the skies but your butt close to home.” And at least for now, that’s what most birders are doing (including Christian Cooper, whose experience safely birding in peace in Central Park was stolen from him, but that’s another story).
What’s been your pandemic story? Have you done more birding? Less? Have you brought any new birders into the fold?
The floor is open. What’s new in your birding world?