I stumbled on bird watching by accident. I never really paid attention to them before. I always found them annoying with the way they build nests in any available nook of my porch with their droppings everywhere. There are also so many types of birds, they all seemed to look the same as they were flying by. One day, I read an article in a local magazine that mentioned an app that identifies birds by sound or you can upload a photo to be identified. It’s an app created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY called Merlin. It’s very cool and it’s free. I’ve started using it in the morning when I go outside. In the middle of April, the birds start migrating back, so the app shows a lot of different birds it detects by sound. It’s neat to review, but apparently there are mental health benefits to bird watching. One study showed the improvement lasted up to 8 hours. Some benefits include:
- Encourages mindfulness. Birds can come and go pretty quick, so if you’re not paying attention, you could miss an interesting moment.
- Bird watching distracts you for a few moments from whatever issues you might have going on.
- Birds mark the seasons. It’s very interesting how in the fall, most birds I have slowly leave. It’s pretty quiet here in the winter. In the spring they all come back and the summer gets pretty noisy. This year I even seem to have a few new types coming.
- Just being outside in nature is healing and helps relieve stress.
I don’t feed birds. Maybe some day I will, but I’m surrounded by woods with various wild animals and a lot of squirrels and chipmunks, so I don’t want to attract them. The birds I have just come naturally to stay in the woods. One type I had last summer was a Scarlet Tanager. It’s a very pretty, bright red bird that lives in the woods. It was really cool to see the few times it came out of the woods.
Challenge:
Give the Merlin bird app a try. It’s free and is in the Apple and Google Play stores. Once downloaded, you create an account and allow location access. Then go outside and use the sound id feature to hear what birds are around you. It’s pretty cool!
Resources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20207-6
https://time.com/6231886/birdwatching-mental-health/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9623220/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindfully-doing-what-matters/202405/birding-your-way-to-well-being
https://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/birding-basics/birding-health/
https://www.happiness.com/magazine/art-culture-leisure/mental-health-benefits-of-bird-watching/