Birdwatching

 ( Outdoor Recreation ) 

Birding in North America was focused in the early and mid-20th century in the eastern seaboard region, and was influenced by the works of Ludlow Griscom and later Roger Tory Peterson. Bird Neighbors (1897) by Neltje Blanchan, an early birding book, sold over 250,000 copies.Shearin, Gloria. 2008. Neltje Blanchan. In: Patterson, D., Thompson, R., Bryson, S., et al., Early American Nature Writers. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, . pp.62–69. It was illustrated with color photographs of stuffed birds.Dunlap, Thomas R. 2011. In the Field, Among the Feathered: A History of Birders & Their Guides, Oxford University Press, . p. 47.

The organization and networking of those interested in birds began through organizations like the Audubon Society, which was against the killing of birds, and the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). The availability of first the bicycle and then the car increased the mobility of birdwatchers and this made new locations accessible.Moss 2004:104–106 Networks of birdwatchers in the UK began to form in the late 1930s under the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). The BTO saw the potential to produce scientific results through the networks, unlike the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) which like the Audubon Society originated from the bird protection movement.

Like the AOU in North America, the BOU had a focus mainly on collection-based taxonomy. The BOU changed focus to ecology and behaviour only in the 1940s. The BTO movement towards 'organized birdwatching' was opposed by the RSPB, which claimed that the 'scientification' of the pastime was 'undesirable'. This stand was to change only in 1936 when the RSPB was taken over by Tom Harrisson and others. Harrisson was instrumental in the organization of pioneering surveys of the great crested grebe.Moss 2004:128

Increased mobility of birdwatchers ensured that books like Where to Watch Birds by John Gooders became best-sellers.Moss 2004:233–234 By the 1960s air travel became feasible and long-distance holiday destinations opened up. By 1965, Britain's first birding tour company, Ornitholidays had been started by Lawrence Holloway.Moss 2004:234–235 Travelling far away also led to problems in name usage: British birds such as "wheatear", "heron" and "swallow" needed adjectives to differentiate them in places where there were several related species.Moss 2004:250 The falling cost of air travel made flying to remote birding destinations a possibility for a large number of people towards the 1980s. The need for global guides to birds increased, and one of the biggest resulting projects was the Handbook of the Birds of the World, begun in the 1990s by Josep del Hoyo, Jordi Sargatal, David A. Christie, and ornithologist Andy Elliott.Moss 2004:252–253

Initially, birdwatching was largely restricted to developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Since the second half of the 20th century an increasing number of people in developing countries have engaged in this activity, such as in the Degua Tembien district of Ethiopia.

The Sibley Guide to Birds, published in 2000, had sold 500,000 copies by 2002. It was found that the number of birdwatchers rose, but there appeared to be a drop in birdwatching in the backyard.

According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study, birders contributed $36 billion to the US economy in 2006, and one fifth (20%) of all Americans are identified as birdwatchers. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2016, over 45 million Americans consider themselves birders.

North American birders were estimated to have spent as much as US$32 billion in 2001. The spending is on the rise around the world. Kuşcenneti National Park (KNP) at Lake Manyas, a Ramsar site in Turkey, was estimated to attract birders who spent as much as US$103,320,074 annually. Guided bird tours have become a major business, with at least 127 companies offering tours worldwide. An average trip to a less-developed country costs $4,000 per person and includes about 12 participants for each of 150 trips a year. It has been suggested that this economic potential needs to be tapped for conservation.

Birdwatching tourism is considered to be one of the fastest-growing nature-based tourism sectors in the world, often involving well-educated or wealthy travelers with specific interests in the places they visit. In addition to this, birdwatching tourism is considered a niche market of nature-based tourism. Birdwatching and other niche tourism markets are good for market diversification and mitigating the impacts of seasonality in a tourism market as well as bringing economic resources to remote communities, thus diversifying their economies and contributing to biodiversity conservation. It is estimated that birdwatching ecotourism contributes $41 billion per year to the U.S. economy. The large funds generated by birdwatching ecotourism have been suggested as a replacement for tax revenue generated by bird hunting which has dropped to its lowest levels in decades.

Birding ecotourism companies are also making contributions to conservation. Birding Ecotours, which runs both international and domestic trips, donates a minimum of 10% of its net profits to bird conservation and communities it operates in. Another tour operator, Hardy Boat, has donated $200,000 to Project Puffin to conserve puffin populations off the Atlantic Coast.

One of the expectations of ecotourism is that the travels of birders to a place will contribute to the improvement of the local economy, ensuring that the environment is valued and protected. Birdwatchers contribute to conservation, helping build and disseminate environmental knowledge by participating in citizen science. However, birding can bring about an increased penetration of ecosystem services that are perceived as birdwatchers' indispensable attributes. By their presence and obstinacy, birdwatchers affect the attractiveness of the breeding migration or roosting sites for birds, flush birds, and otherwise increase the pressure on birds and their habitats (e.g., luring birds out of their hideouts and stressing them by playing their calls or exposing birds and their nests to predators). Furthermore, other impacts include disturbance to birds, the environment, local cultures and the economy. Methods to reduce negative impact and improve the value of conservation are the subject of research.

Certain locations such as a local patch of forest, wetland and coast may be favoured according to the location and season. Seawatching, or pelagic birding, is a type of birding where observers based at a coastal watch point, such as a headland, watch birds flying over the sea. This is one form of pelagic birding, though birders also seek pelagic species from seagoing vessels.

Weather plays an important role in the occurrence of rare birds. In Britain, suitable wind conditions may lead to drift migration, and an influx of birds from the east. In North America, birds caught in the tail-end of a hurricane may be blown inland.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology's eBird database is a popular tool used by birders to document their sightings. In addition to serving as a citizen science project used by ornithologists to document trends in bird populations, it allows birders see recent reports by other birders and search by species and location. Some species, including endangered species and others likely to be disrupted by increased human activity, are designated "sensitive species" by eBird and have locations of sightings hidden from the general public.

The lack of definite evidence, except arguably in the form of photographs, makes birding records difficult to prove but birdwatchers strive to build trust in their identification. One of the few major disputes was the case of the Hastings Rarities.

A study of the motivations for birdwatching in New York concluded that initial motivations were largely similar in males and females, but males who participate actively in birding are more motivated by "sharing knowledge" with others, and active female birders are more motivated by their "intellectual" interest in studying birds, and by the "challenge" of identifying new and rare birds and improving their skills. Another study suggested that males lean towards competitive birding, while females prefer recreational birdwatching. A study for birdwatchers in Poland found that the proportion of female birdwatchers involved in twitching has grown in recent years and that female birdwatchers were more willing to participate in observations of more common bird rarities than male birdwatchers. While the representation of women has always been low,Moss 2004:316–330 it has been pointed out that nearly 90% of all birdwatchers in the United States are white, with only a few African Americans. Other minority groups have formed organizations to support fellow birders, such as the Gay Birders Club and Birding For All, formerly the Disabled Birders Association.

The study of birdwatching has been of interest to students of the sociology of science. A 2024 study conducted in Iran examined how personality traits predict birdwatching interest and self-identification as a birdwatcher. The results highlighted that openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness positively influenced engagement, while neuroticism had a negative effect. People who have nature-based experiences report better well-being and lower psychological distress than those who do not, and birdwatching in particular was found to have higher gains in subjective well-being and more reduction in distress than more generic nature exposure, such as walks.

Birders have been known to go to great lengths and some have lost their lives in the process. Phoebe Snetsinger spent her family inheritance travelling to various parts of the world while suffering from a malignant melanoma, surviving an attack and rape in New Guinea before dying in a road accident in Madagascar.