The Scaly Claws of This Hobby Have a Grip on Today’s Teens

Editor’s note: This story is part of KQED’s Youth Takeover. Throughout the week of April 21–25, we’re publishing content by high school students from all over the Bay Area.

Every year, as birds make their journeys hundreds — sometimes thousands — of miles across whole continents, they attract the attention of bird-watchers. People gather along marshes and shorelines like Rodeo Beach and the Berkeley Marina, cold hands gripping their binoculars and excitement brewing in their stomachs.

A stereotypical birder, for many, is someone from an older generation. “I think a lot of people who are on the outside of bird-watching, they think it’s an old grandma sitting at her feeder looking at blue jays and cardinals,” says Christopher Henry, a 15-year-old birder from San José.

Henry is part of a growing national trend. According to the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, there were 4.7 million 16–24-year-old birders in 2016 and 10.8 million in 2022.

Why exactly has this boom happened?

The COVID-19 pandemic is definitely part of the story. That forced downtime incentivized teenagers to explore the outdoors after being stuck inside for so long. Yet technology may be the real gateway these days. Families might introduce young people to bird-watching, but apps and social media networks are helping them keep up their commitment to the hobby.

Once hooked, teenagers find the benefits of birding are decidedly tangible: bird-watching connects them to networks of other enthusiasts, provides escape and relaxation, helps them tap into cultural heritages and broadens their understanding of ecosystems. Teenage birders are finding their own digital way into a very analog and wholesome activity.

Birding for bragging rights

Sadie Cosby, a 17-year-old senior at Sales and College Prep in Richmond, recognizes the appeal of online birding platforms. She’s even part of a unique Discord server that sends alerts when there is a rare bird in the area. She fell in love with bird-watching after her father started hunting ducks. Mesmerized by their iridescent feathers, she was far more interested in seeing the birds in motion, and so they started heading out together.

Although Cosby says she prefers to bird-watch alone and uses it as a way to disconnect, she also enjoys being connected to other birders online. “I think because we’re kind of the iPhone generation, it’s easier for us to relate to birding through all of the platforms, which gamify birding a little bit,” says Cosby.

She’s also a member of the California Young Birders’ Club, founded by Elisa Yang in 2014 to bring young birders together. “I’ve found a community where there’s a high density of young birders, and because of it I’ve met a lot of competitive, wonderful people,” Cosby says.

Henry, a freshman at Campbell’s Westmont High School, shares Cosby’s enthusiasm for the birding community. “One of my favorite parts is meeting new people. You’re constantly meeting amazing people and making amazing connections with them,” he says. “In the end, it can really do good for you.”

Although he’s only been birding for two years, Henry’s been interested for his whole life, ever since he made bird lists with his grandmother in Michigan. (His parents even claim that his first word was “bird.”) Henry’s dedication only progressed from there. He wrote his own field guide around age seven, and created a YouTube channel to document his birding trips in 2023. His channel currently has more than 2,000 subscribers. Henry hopes his videos inspire other people to go out and find rare birds, and simply have a good time.

Henry uses eBird, a popular bird-watching app, primarily for its “life list” feature, which allows users to check off bird species as they find them. That ever-growing list is an easy way to measure progress and successes; it’s a digital cumulative record and somewhat braggable accomplishment.

“If eBird didn’t exist, I don’t think I would be a birder,” says Henry. “It just makes it so much fun. It keeps all of your stats right there, and it makes it sort of like a game where you can compete and compare yourself to other young birders.”

Finding cultural meaning

All the young birders interviewed for this story agreed that birding has a positive effect on their mental health and general mood.

Daniela Sanchez, a 27-year-old birder who lives in San Francisco, uses bird-watching as a way to connect with her surroundings and relax. Her birding origin story comes out of a stressful situation.

“I was basically forced to take an ornithology class in college to meet a graduation requirement,” she remembers. “I fell in love with the class. The teacher was very nice.” That course, which required her to explore the Bay Area outdoors, was in stark contrast to the indoor activities of her other classes.

She notices dramatic emotional benefits when she takes time to decompress through bird-watching. “Definitely my mood improves, like it skyrockets,” she says. “And afterwards I become more productive with everything else that I wanted to get done in the first place, but I couldn’t do.”

Sanchez and I met through a Latino bird-watching branch of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, which organizes rare bilingual birding events. Together, we were part of a diverse, intergenerational mix of people, connected by the ever-present hobby of bird-watching and our shared Latino heritage.

For Sanchez, bird-watching provides another way to access her Mexican roots. “In my country a hummingbird is called a colibri, but in a different country it’s called a chuparrosa,” she says. Birds carry different names and cultural significance across their migratory paths.

“To someone who a specific bird doesn’t really hold much cultural importance, sure, if they disappear, it’s sad, we won’t see them again,” she says, noting the threats of climate change to bird populations. “But in reality, we lose a lot more with that when it does hold that cultural meaning, in relation to language and how communities learn lessons from those species around them.”

Rajan Rao, an 18-year-old senior at Lick Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, connects to birding on similarly big-picture scale.

“I would say my favorite part of bird-watching is how it’s a smaller example of evolutionary forces at large,” he says. By comparing the relationships between different species and their common traits, Rao continues, “you can kind of see how that species fits into the larger context of the ecosystem.”

Although many children have a “nature phase,” Rao says his was exceptionally strong. He got into bird-watching through nature camps, and is now the co-leader of the Northern California chapter of the California Young Birders’ Club. Thanks to birding, he has an immense appreciation for the environment and the birds within the landscape.

Rao, Sanchez, Henry and Cosby are just a few members of a much larger and densely networked community of young bird-watchers in the Bay Area. And though they share much in common with older generations of birders when it comes to their passion for and enjoyment of the hobby, they also have a distinct advantage over their elders: several decades longer to expand on those life lists.

Camila Nube is a sophomore at Berkeley High School, an avid birder and a member of KQED’s Youth Advisory Board.