For the Birds! Or Can Bird Watching Help Your Wellbeing?
This morning, as I watched the tiny wren on my deck railing chirp his mating song, an involuntary smile came to my lips, and I realized how much these little feathered creatures have calmed and cheered me these past few years.
My Intentional Encounter
During the height of the pandemic, in early 2020, I joined the Cornell University Feederwatch program. Each week, on two consecutive days, I recorded the species who visited the feeders outside my kitchen window.
I reported them in an easy data sheet and learned from the resources available there. But quite honestly, just filling those feeders with sunflower seeds, spreading peanut butter on a wooden holder, and placing a suet cake in a wire cage, made me feel like Lady Bountiful. I was helping life survive, in one small way.
Their colors reminded me there is beauty in this world. Red cardinals, black capped chickadees, blue jays, woodpeckers… and that’s just in my own backyard. All over this earth, different species display their feathers to attract mates and as a byproduct, brighten our lives.
What’s Ornitherapy?
Tthere’s a memoir that promotes birdwatching as healing. Holly Merkes’ Ornitherapy: For your Mind, Body and Soul is the story of how her birdwatching helped her beat an aggressive breast cancer. In a 1979 article in the British Journal of Medicine, Dr. A.F. Cox stated that birdwatching was an effective tranquilizer.
Merkes believes that being intentional, in the moment while birding, slows down our minds. That means not racing to look the species up in your bird book or scrambling for the best shot on your camera or phone. As a type A overthinking former librarian, I love that idea! Nothing to prove, no new knowledge to acquire. Just enjoying the little creatures you see.
Tiny Little Healers
Birds are all around us, in city or countryside. They sing to us, and we would do well to listen. A 2017 study by the University of Exeter suggests that people in areas with more birds are less likely to be stressed, depressed or anxious.
Even if they know little to nothing about birds, being surrounded by them has a healing effect. You can even watch birds all over the world, day or night, with Cornell’s Feederwatch live cameras.
Just Sit and Watch
Merkes writes about practices like journaling about their observations, sitting quietly and observing how a bird moves its tail or cracks open a seed, and waiting for birds to come closer. During her cancer treatment, she took the hair she lost due to chemotherapy and put it into a suet cage outside her window. As she watched a titmouse pull strands of her hair to line its nest, she felt a surge of hope.
“For the birds” is an American phrase meaning trivial or worthless. I’ll let you decide what you think of that. I’m going to sit outside and watch life flit around the trees.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What about you? Have you become a birdwatcher in your 60s? What are your favorite ways to observe the birds? Has it helped you overcome a trying time?
Tags Creativity
Having recently moved into a home with lots of large windows, I really miss the bird show at the deck feeders at my last home, the regulars and the passing migrants. But no feeders here until I can cover all the windows with bird strike prevention (Acopian, birdsavers.com). I have most of the windows done, it’s cheap and easy to do, and I am so looking forward to the grace and comfort of feeding them again, safely.
What a delightful, perfect article. My husband and I joke (as we sit outside our country
home in the middle of an untouched forest), “I never thought this wild child hippie girl and her ex-cop ex-lawyer husband would sit around feeding and watching birds in our senior years.” It is sooooooooo soothing. I love throwing the best bird seed available into the yard along with handfuls of unshelled peanuts. Like the author, I do not document anything, just enjoy nurturing them during our cocktail hour. The gorgeous bluejays and giant ravens scoop up peanuts, take them into the trees and peck at them until they are shelled. A large covey of quail descend. Chickadees, Wild doves. Redheaded woodpeckers. Wild turkeys. Free-range peacocks! I am not quite retired (from the wearying career of
being a family law attorney), and this end-of-day retreat time is all the therapy I need.
I was the gal who rolled her eyes at the older women who would tell me about ” their birds of the day ” when they went out for a walk…now I am one of those women..I walk and plan car trips around the birds. I invite folks over to the backyard to sit and watch the birds.
My fiance has finally settled on a favorite camera he uses for birding. Bird photos out number family photos on the walls…
There is a special peace that comes into play as you sit and watch them.
The first things I did upon moving into an apartment after 48yr marriage breakup was put bird feeders on my tiny balcony and adopt a traumatized kitten. I so enjoy the goldfinches, chickadees and whatever else finds my little feeders. They put an enormous smile on my face. Kitty and I have learned to trust and love each other – what more could I ask for?
Having a cat as well as bird feeders seems rather dangerous for the birds!
Indoor cat! No she’s not a problem. Of course she likes to watch the birds as much as I do – perhaps for a different reason. My point was how much joy they’ve both brought to my life. Living by myself suddenly, in my late 70’s, I needed the companionship these creatures bring to my life.
Thank you for this lovely piece. Like the author cited, I too relied on birdwatching as a form of therapy during my own breast cancer ,and then throat cancer, experiences and credit the calming effect of the activity to my successfully navigating those difficult times.