How birdwatching changed my life

Birding has opened up a whole new way of experiencing the world for me; I can't imagine my life without it now.

In late August of 2023, a hummingbird flew across our backyard. I watched its improbable mid-air stops and starts for a few seconds, and in a flash it was gone. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about birds.

Out of everything that’s happened over the past 15 months, the joys and struggles of navigating my amazingly blended family, the ups and downs of a writing career, the friendships old and new, the stint as a solar salesperson on the side, the stint as a Doordash driver on the side, the dozens of therapy sessions, the election and its outcome, the constant searching for meaning in an unjust and rapidly warming world — the single thing that’s brought it all together for me is — birds.

Before this time last year, I would never, ever have considered myself a bird person. Sure, I definitely loved the outdoors, but as someone who has worked from home for more than a decade, in hindsight, I was sedentary. I felt uncomfortable in my body. I was always anxious. And I somehow just never had enough time for walks.

On that warm August weekend, my wife was out of town with some friends, and so I decided to download the Merlin app on a whim. Within a few hours, I had learned that there were at least a dozen species of sparrows in the tallgrass prairies surrounding the Twin Cities, and was able to — for the first time in my life — accurately distinguish a Blue Jay from a Crow.

After more than a decade of working from home as an environmental journalist, I had finally found something that compelled me to connect with the world around me in beautiful, tangible ways — not just via words on a screen.

The next weekend, my dad was visiting from Kansas, and we briefly chatted about birds while we were working in the backyard together. I grew up envious of how connected he was to the outdoors — but could never quite figure out how to access that kind of knowledge myself. And now it had arrived. And I was hooked.

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird, I later learned, was by far the most prevalent hummingbird in Minnesota. And — get this — despite weighing only a tenth of an ounce, every year they fly ACROSS THE GULF OF MEXICO to overwinter in Central America.

They should call it “bird-listening” instead of birdwatching, because, at least for me, the first few weeks of discovering birds was at least 75% listening. It felt like I had gained access to a completely new layer of reality. I found myself listening, rather than seeing, as my primary sense on my walks in the woods, and it was gloriously disorienting.

The feeling hasn’t stopped yet, more than 15 months later. The bird in the photo on the top of this post is a Neotropic cormorant, lifer #381 for me, spotted at a city park in Phoenix, Arizona last week. Cormorants are amazing birds — “like a penguin that can fly” according to my 13-year-old. In the open ocean, Pelagic cormorants can dive up to 140 ft in search of fish. I mean, come on.

I’ve come to know that every kind of bird, even pigeons, are beautiful.

Anyway, I could go on and on. Science journalist Ed Yong wrote beautifully about his experiences becoming a birder earlier this year, and how once you discover this hobby, you will never be bored again.

And that, my friends, is the truth.

The butt of a Greater Prairie-chicken, lifer #221 for me, seen at The Nature Conservancy’s Bluestem Prairie in western Minnesota.

How to get started birding?

Here’s some beginner guides from the National Park Service and from the Audubon Society. But from my perspective, you really only need one of two things: Your eyes (a decent pair of binoculars *really* helps to see without disturbing the birds) and/or your ears (the Merlin app *really* helps learn bird calls). And then once you’re ready, you can start building your “life list” via eBird and contribute to the global community of birders.

Birds are everywhere. All you really need to do is pay attention.

What I’m watching

I’ve begun an investigation into how mid-sized Midwestern cities are working to move their climate plans forward, and I’ll have much more to come on this soon. These are the kinds of cities that, on balance, voted for both Obama & for Trump — and really capture that middle 50-60% of Americans for whom the climate emergency isn’t necessarily top of mind, but of course want to leave a better world for their kids and neighbors.

It’s a complex place, and I’m looking forward to many fascinating conversations in the weeks to come while I report out what I find.

In other news

I changed my Bluesky handle! The conversation on Bluesky is really taking off. If you haven’t joined yet, it’s definitely brought the joy of social media back for me.

Here are some starter packs I put together over the past few weeks or so:

  • Women/femmes doing amazing work in climate (there are thousands of worthy folks, this is just my first list!)

  • Breaking weather (an update of my very popular Twitter list)

  • Birds! feed (not a starter pack, and not mine, but one of my favorite things to click on when I notice I’m starting to doomscroll — this snaps me back to reality and helps me focus on the present moment like nothing else.)

May you have good weather,

Eric