Hot take! Bird watching is actually really fun, and it is not just a grandma activity. In fact, I would argue it’s basically just Pokémon Go without your phone.
Firstly, let me explain this opinion by first relating to my fellow college students. I am an 18-year-old girl, I like playing video games and doing crafts, and I go crazy for F@N Bingo just like all of you. So why did I start birding? My mom is a nature photographer, but I never paid much attention to what she encountered. I only started understanding it last year, in April 2025. I randomly started seeing these videos on Instagram that tested your knowledge on common northeastern birds, and my competitive side came out. I knew almost all the birds just from listening to my mom talk about them over the years. I was so determined to wipe out these Instagram Reels that I started religiously learning the names of every bird we saw on our deck. That’s when I realized that I had accidentally started enjoying the activity I had been making fun of my mom for. So what’s in birding for you?
First of all, birding is not high stakes or a big commitment. I bird all the time in my everyday life on campus, because birds are everywhere! There are plenty of birds right on Fairfield campus; have you ever heard the shrieking, monkey-like sound coming from behind the Bannow Science Center? That sound is a sharp-shinned hawk, which I have affectionately started calling Sally. The birds that waddle around outside the Tully and eat the apples are American herring gulls, and of course, we are all aware of the Canada geese plaguing the quad and sidewalks with poop. While these bigger birds may be pesky, there are smaller and much less annoying ones hiding in the trees, such as mockingbirds, house sparrows, and black-capped chickadees.
Birding is also an inexpensive hobby because all you need is an identifier app! I use an app called Merlin, which is free with no ads, and you can ID birds with a photo, audio recording or description. Identifying the birds is my favorite part of birding because it is like having a collection! Every time I see or hear a new bird, I get to add it to my “life list”, which is a list of all the birds I have ever seen before. This is like catching a Pokémon for the first time and adding it to your team!
As someone who isn’t a fan of travel, I have also found that I get more excited about going to new places because every place has unique bird species that I get to add to my life list. This summer, I went to Bermuda on a cruise and spent an entire day off the boat birding with my mom. There are birds there that I will never find anywhere else, but I know I also didn’t see every bird there is to see, so there is incentive to revisit the same place numerous times! But you don’t have to travel out of the country to find new birds; you will also find a plethora of new birds just by traveling to more coastal or inland parts of states in the same region, or you can go to other parts of the country for even more variety. When I went to the Jersey Shore, which is only about 2 hours from where I live in New York, I added 31 new birds to my life list!
Of course, there are also the health benefits to birding, such as going on more walks and being connected with nature. Personally, this pro isn’t huge for me because I am not a very outdoorsy person, but because there are so many birds that have adapted to more urban life, you do not have to go on intense hikes or be outside for hours at a time to find them. Of course, if you are an outdoorsy person anyway, getting to identify birds on your adventures is just an added bonus of fun! It can also be a way to spend mindful time away from screens, which I know I definitely struggle with, alongside a lot of my classmates. Because birds are such fast-moving creatures, they tend to keep my brain stimulated enough that I can get entranced by watching them for minutes at a time. They have their own communities and dynamics too, which you get to learn about if you watch them for long enough.
Lastly, it’s just a fun party trick to know all their names. When people see a bird, you get to say, “Oh look! It’s a northern flicker!” and seem super smart because who the heck our age knows what a northern flicker is? Literally no one except me, but that could be you if you join me on the birding journey!