Bird-watching has been one of the world’s most popular hobbies for hundreds of years—the joy of seeing birds in flight overhead, the heartwarming sensation when a pair of birds raises a family of fledglings, and the satisfaction of spotting a new species for the first time. Birding is popular and its popularity is increasing, especially in North America which houses over 60 million birdwatchers. Interestingly, Vermont has the second highest percentage of birdwatchers (43% of state residents) in the country, second only to Montana. The question is: Is the age old favorite hobby of bird-watching undergoing a major face lift in our high-demand and highly-charged age?
Today, birding no longer means sitting on the back porch, sipping an iced tea and watching what comes to the feeder. Nor does it necessarily mean walking in the back yard with binoculars at hand and eyes wide open in case anything unusual should cross one’s path. In recent years, and especially now, bird-watching has evolved more and more from a rewarding hobby to a cutthroat sport. Many people are no longer content to sit at home and wait for something interesting to pop up.
Bird-watching expeditions to far-off places are no longer a thing just for Darwin and Audubon. More birders are choosing to participate in costly, far-away birding trips. Just type “bird-watching trips” into the online search engine Google and you get over 2 million results, from advertisements for birding expeditions to South America to journals written by traveling birdwatchers. Bus loads of birdwatchers ship off to the jungles of Ecuador, Panama, Brazil, and Africa and go on “supervised” birding walks. Travelers used to make up about 20% of all birdwatchers; now, they reach 40%.
I was shocked to find out that the seemingly-omnipresent iPod has also influenced the birding revolution. The popular music player now sports a program where you can download thousands of bird calls onto the device in the palm of your hand. If you think about it, it’s so high tech that your iPod will drown out the calls of the birds you are trying to identify. Not my cup of tea.
Make sure to look for part two of this column next time to further explore the “birding revolution”—from how bird-watching has become increasingly digitalized to how the amount of money spent on the sport is skyrocketing.
Have any birding questions or queries? Seen anything outstanding lately? Be sure to let me know all about, by sending me an e-mail at chickadee@att.net.
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