What qualities really make someone a birder?

Bird watching is an activity, but that might seem like an understatement to you. Maybe you see it as a community, one full of bird experts—or bird nerds.

It’s understandable if you do. Most people haven’t had enough experience with “bird watchers” to feel able to understand or relate. Maybe if you’re examining it from the outside, you might feel like it’s not for everyone. Maybe you just don’t think anyone can be a birder.

Getting clarification on this begins with a little diving in: 

Who exactly birds? 

Bird experts. Identification gurus. People with binoculars and spotting scopes and cameras with massive lenses. Surely, these are birders because they know birds.

While these are accurate statements about some birders, it’s definitely not all encompassing.  

The truth is, “birders” can be described in TONS of different ways.

And you can group them into many of their own niche subtypes. There are ornithologist birders, social birders, casual birders, “hardcore” birders, bird watchers—NOT “birders”, and even non-birders who like to watch birds but don’t like the label.

Then there are preferences and passions within. There are Big Year lovers, “twitchers” (obsessed with seeing bird species they’ve never seen before), photographer birders, solo birders, bird walk enthusiasts, citizen science lovers, backyard bird feeders, early risers, hikers, backpackers, artists, cartoonists, video gamers.  

Wow that’s a lot. And that’s a good thing.  

Birding is a casual and diverse community of millions, and that means we have a perfect answer to the question “who birds”: many people from many different backgrounds.

To learn more about who birds, it helps to know what draws people to it.

Let’s talk about a few birders.

• “Punk Birder” Tony Crosdale says that his passion for environmental activism has some striking similarities to the DIY individualism of punk culture. 

• Having grown up in the Bronx, Birding in North America host Jason Ward says he stayed clear of drugs and crime thanks to his fascination with animals. Bird watching was his escape. He’s now a significant figure in the birding community.

• Jason St. Sauver started the Lets Go Birding Together Walk to welcome the LGBTQ community into birding. He states that “biodiversity makes our ecosystem stronger, and our diversity makes our community stronger.” 

So these are avid birders. They represent how diverse the community really is. Now I want to get into just how casual the community really can be (you don’t need a long list of prerequisites to earn the “birder” title).

So I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. 

In my family, none of us introduced each other to birds. We just gravitated towards them individually, not even noticing it was happening.

• My grandmother used to take photos of birds for her photography class while she was in art school. She has some great stories, like one about several ornery swans she got too close to (they chased her up a hill). When we last talked on the phone, she asked me for stills of my bird videos so she can make paintings out of my work. 

• My dad lives on a lake. He has three hummingbird feeders on his back porch. He knows more about Ruby Throated Hummingbirds than anyone I know, all from internet research sparked by curiosity. In the evenings, he’ll go outside hoping that they’ll come out if he’s still enough. If they don’t show, he looks out into the cove for the Great Blue Heron that lives nearby. 

• My sister created a little bird oasis in her backyard in Colorado. She has two houses, a bird bath, and a feeder, all things she’s gathered over time as birthday and Christmas presents. She’s got a variety of residents including a Mourning Dove couple, an Eastern Towhee, an American Robin family each spring, a few Magpies, and a Blue Jay that caws from a tree then swoops in for a quick snack before departing. During spring and fall, she gets migratory birds stopping in for a break on their journeys.

And how did I start? I was first a nature enthusiast. I liked to hike and camp and I enjoyed animals. Birds were fascinating to me, and then I got exposed to birding, something that likely wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t already a videographer. Turns out, birds are a great video challenge. Now, I go out for hours at a time with my camera and my compact tripod. I’m still learning how to get steady shots and what settings to use in order to be ready to capture in an instant. But thankfully, I’ve finally collected enough good shots that are ready to send to my grandma.

So…who’s a birder?

The answer is vast. The draw to bird watching can come from countless avenues and covers cultures all over the world, people from many demographics and backstories. That makes the answer impossible to offer, yet incredibly simple. 

Who birds? Anyone.