Bird-watching has long been a favorite pastime—and if a recent survey from the U.K. is any indication, Gen Z could prove to be the most enthusiastic birders yet.
Nearly 750,000 16- to 29-year-olds in Britain said they bird-watch regularly, according to a survey published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—a 1,088 percent increase since 2018.
The sharp rise among young birders is part of a broader trend. The same survey found bird-watching is up 47 percent overall in Britain, while in the United States, the number of bird-watchers more than doubled between 2016 and 2022.
Much of that renewed interest can be traced back to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to wildlife advocate and birding expert Adrianne “Drin” Chissus, director of consumer and bird engagement at the wild bird food company Global Harvest Foods.
“We were all stuck inside in 2020. And a lot of the younger generation, they were in middle school, they were in high school—those were formative years,” Chissus says.
Bird-watching was something young people could easily do from home, while platforms like TikTok and Instagram made it easy to share the experience with friends.
“All of a sudden, your friends are doing it, their friends are doing it. More people are going outside or looking through their back window, and we’re sharing this experience in a way that our parents weren’t able to. And it’s kind of like FOMO or people have this fear of missing out, and so they want to be involved and included.”
While it may not be the way our parents bird-watched, it’s still fundamentally the same hobby, says Chissus, who remembers bird-watching with her grandfather as a child and sharing the excitement of spotting goldfinches and hummingbirds through the window.
“Bird watching has been around for hundreds of years. People have been watching and feeding birds for as long as we’ve been able to, but it changes throughout the decades,” she says. “And it’s so easy to do it because you just really need your phone, a social media account, birdseed, and a view.”
Sometimes modern bird-watching can take extreme forms. “Twitchers,” as they’re known in the U.K.—Drin compares them to “listers” in the States—may travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to spot a bird they’ve never seen before. In other cases, a sighting can go viral on social media, drawing crowds of birders hoping to spot a rare bird. But for most bird-watchers, the hobby remains simple.
“There’s something about it. No matter who you are or your age, if you look out your window and you see the flashing feathers, you’re like, ‘What is that? I want to know.’ And it gets exciting and you get the regular visitors—it’s like you have a friend that you welcome each and every single day.”
Even better, the rising interest among younger generations has the potential to bring families together.
“Bird-watching really exceeds generations,” Chissus says. “It’s something you could have your grandparents come over for a holiday and enjoy together. That’s kind of a rare thing for a 10-year-old and a 70-year-old to be able to come together and have the same shared excitement. But it’s something that we’re seeing happening more and more. It’s not just a way to connect with nature outside your window, but also with each other.”
