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Birds, whether everyday robins or exotic migrants, are both fascinating and easy to observe.
And the activity of birding — taking the time to watch and learn about them — can be good for your body, your brain and your social life, birders and researchers say. Birding requires almost no equipment, special skills, exams or even tromping through the woods (if you don’t want to), says Paul Laurent, co-owner with his wife, Amanda, of Epic Nature Tours in Banner Elk, North Carolina, and a member of the executive board of the nonprofit Carolina Bird Club.
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“If you enjoy looking at the birds outside your backyard window, that makes you a bird-watcher,” says Laurent. “You have watched birds on purpose and enjoyed it — that’s really the only requirement to call yourself a bird-watcher. Then you can go down the rabbit hole as deep as you want.”
Sometimes stereotyped as the domain of binocular-toting nerds, birding took off during the pandemic and sales of seed for backyard bird feeders shot up, according to the National Audubon Society. Participation in the organization’s Great Backyard Bird Count, a four-day event held each February that provides a snapshot of local bird populations, has more than doubled since 2019, says Audubon.
More diversity in birding as a hobby
Birding also has become more obviously diverse, partly because of the social media attention around Black Birders Week, founded by the BlackAFinSTEM Collective in 2020. That came about as one response to a confrontation in New York’s Central Park involving Black birder Christian Cooper, who is now the host of the National Geographic series Extraordinary Birder With Christian Cooper.
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