By Laura Voight
Birding is one of life’s great joys. Discovering the endless beauty and variety of birds immerses us in nature, away from our daily stresses. In the Lowcounty, we are fortunate to live in one of the country’s richest birding areas. Our live oak and pine forests, palmetto thickets, saltwater marshes and sandy beaches create an unmatched stage for birding – from delicate woodland songbirds and high-flying raptors to long-legged wading birds and flocks of shore and sea birds.
Every beginning birder feels that magical moment when a seductive chirp or trill makes you pause, listen for more and scan for movement in the grasses or branches that indicates a bird or two. Then, you see that small, feathered creature who stopped you in your tracks. That “aha” moment fills you with a joy and excitement that keeps you coming back for more.
The health benefits of birding – from watching and learning about these amazing, feathered creatures and getting out in nature, to sharing our joy and fascination of birds with others – are increasingly recognized by the conservation and scientific communities. In her Audubon Magazine article, “Birding With Benefits,” Jill Adams outlines recent findings on nature’s ability to improve our mental health. “One leading theory is that nature can restore our attention and counter the mental fatigue that today’s urban and sensory-filled environments cause,” she notes.
Today, our mental health is challenged by our reliance on electronic devices. Our physical health is compromised by the sedentary demands of work and play on computers. Staying indoors on our devices or watching TV keeps too many of us separated from the beauty and benefits of fresh air and nature.
Nature reduces stress, calms our minds, and reinvigorates our energy
People realized how much they missed nature during the pandemic’s isolation. As reports of its benefits poured through their news feeds, many yearned to return outside. The benefits of being in nature, among the trees and ocean, marshes, and fields, have long been well-known by birders. Now, backed by scientific findings and popularized in the mainstream news, people from all walks of life are learning for themselves that getting out into nature reduces stress, calms one’s mind and reinvigorates our energy.
For over a decade now, the National Park Service has joined health providers and community leaders to make Park Rx America– a non-profit that prescribes nature connections to improve one’s health – a success around the country. Indeed, one’s physical health is also improved by being active and walking outdoors. Adding birding to the quest for health improvement makes our journey outdoors even healthier. Academic research featured in BioScience shows that nature walks where people encounter a high number of birds are more “positively associated with a lower prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress” than those walking in nature without birds. In fact, in Shetland, Scotland, the U.K.’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has successfully guided doctors to prescribe birding to a regimen of outdoor activities that can help counter the effects of depression brought on by modern habits of inactivity and over-eating.
Even Backyard Birding can improve your mental health
Other studies show that even backyard birding – watching birds from the comfort of your home – can improve your mental health. Identifying the seasons with changing molts, watching cooperation between nesting male and female bluebirds, feeling a hummingbird buzz by, or seeing different species of birds feeding on bushes or feeders, all wash away the stress of the day in a moment. Seeing nature in action is truly mesmerizing, even in the comfort of your own backyard!
Birding is more popular than ever, and its science-based health benefits are a wonderful side effect. When we compare notes with our neighbors about our backyard birds or join a bird walk in the area, our connections grow, and our horizons expand – and our health improves. As Heather Ray in Birds & Blooms succinctly puts it: “An interest in birds brings together people from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds. Birding crosses all social and economic barriers and creates a sense of camaraderie that can help forge lasting friendships.”
Indeed, this remedy to improve our mental and physical health with birdwatching is catching on around the world. National Geographic reports that more than 45 million people are now birders. Bird-watching eco-tourism has flourished to become at least a $41 billion per year industry. These numbers continue to grow every year. The hobby of birding enriches our economy: from binoculars and mega-zoom cameras to specialized feeders and bird guides, Audubon knows that this trend will only continue to rise in the future.
Birds benefit, too
As people recognize the health benefits of birding, birds benefit, too. Here’s how: as people appreciate nature more and more, they increasingly want to keep nature itself healthy. As people’s interests to preserve healthy, natural environments, birds and other wildlife benefit with their ecosystems and habitats maintained and conserved.
One of the key entry points for people’s interest in conservation is being in nature itself. Recognizing the importance of it, they then act to preserve and conserve nature. Attempts to preserve nature can encounter roadblocks, though. Unless we advocate against overdevelopment and a lack of local, state and federal policies to protect our air, land and water, conservation efforts are stymied.
On a positive note, some companies and developers are incorporating more environmentally safe practices in their planning, often as a demand from their shareholders and customers. This is a good start, but without regulations and laws holding them accountable, support for conservation will remain spotty and unenforceable. Real change to increase conservation successes will come from more of us stepping up with our voices, actions, and advocacy. Writing our government officials, attending public meetings, keeping abreast of proposals put forth at local, state, and federal levels, and mobilizing others to join conservation movements, will put pressure on lawmakers to enact policies that protect our natural surroundings.
Keeping nature intact, free of development and pollution, is the driving force behind Audubon’s conservation mission. At Hilton Head Island Audubon, the principles of conserving the ecosystems that birds here in the Lowcountry need to survive and thrive guides our work so that people and nature benefit each other together.
Laura Voight is an Audubon Hilton Head board member and the Conservation Chair.