One early spring, around three years ago, I found myself in an empty bar in Salt Lake City, Utah, with my dad. We had been skiing all day at Park City with my aunt and uncle, but had decided on a nightcap just the two of us. Taking a seat at the bar, we ordered two shots of whiskey and a couple of cocktails. After chatting with our bartender about the backwards alcohol laws the state enforced, our conversation somehow shifted to birding.
I asked my dad, a longtime birder, what his birding White Whale was. He told me he’d already seen it — a golden eagle. The large and impressive birds of prey are found in the Northern Hemisphere, identified by their mostly dark brown feathers and golden nape, hence the name. While kayaking in the Hoover Dam, one of these birds had swooped down to the water, right in front of my dad’s kayak. He recounted the story, still with an air of both disbelief and wonder in his voice.
Most of my childhood family vacations took place in the Great Outdoors. While my classmates came back from island getaways with their hair braided and faces tanned, I caught them up on my more rustic summer adventures with my father’s side of the family. One summer, I hiked the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and searched for the “world-famous” dark skies of the commonwealth state. The August before freshman year of high school, my extended family road-tripped from Philadelphia to Canada’s Bay of Fundy, a 13-hour drive spent in one tiny RV. I swam in the bone-chilling bay, camped under the clearest night sky my city-dwelling ass had ever seen and hiked to the Hopewell Rocks — impressive sandstone formations sculpted by tidal erosion 13,000 years ago. A couple of summers after, I spent a week in the White Mountains region of New Hampshire, where I, once again, spent my days immersed in nature, hiking the Flume Gorge and ziplining 200 feet above the mountain range’s forest floor.
These were all memorable trips, filled with breathtaking views, good eats, thrill-seeking activities and familial bickering. To say I wasn’t grateful for the experiences (and free vacations) would be a lie. But there were moments while I laced up my clunky hiking boots that my sixteen-year-old self wished she were actually tanning on a beach somewhere with a Piña Colada in hand. Because when you’re a teenage girl on her third hike of the week with her family, there are only so many overlooks that will take your breath away. There are so many pairs of practical, but wholly unflattering beige hiking pants you can bear to slip your legs into each morning before you crash out. And there is only so much patience you have for your father, whom you love, but well, is your father. Particularly, when he stops for the hundredth time on a long, sweaty hike to fetch his binoculars from their case and scan the trees for a bird.
My dad, as my family likes to tease gently, is a “bird nerd.” I believe he gets this from my grandmother, a fellow birder who passed this gene down not only to my father but to his sister. The three of them embark on their own birding adventures from time to time, solo from the rest of the family, knowing better than to subject us non-birders to boredom and themselves to our complaining.
My dad rarely leaves the house without his binoculars in tow. (The problem is when he realizes he’s left them in the car and we have to hike back to retrieve them.) While riding in the passenger seat of his car, I’ve had to remind him on numerous drives to keep his eyes on the road because he’s craned his neck up to the windshield to try to catch a glimpse of a hawk flying overhead. My sister and I are regularly shushed on our outdoor excursions, so my dad can pinpoint a bird call with Merlin Bird ID (known as the “Shazam for birds”).
How the Bronx Became an Unlikely Birdwatching Haven
In 1842, John James Audubon moved to Washington Heights. His legacy is still felt today.I don’t know what happens when you reach adulthood — maybe it’s your frontal lobe finally forming — but you develop an interest in birds. It happened to me. After decades of poking fun at my dad’s favorite hobby, feigning excitement for the winged creatures spotted on our outings, I’ve learned the bird nerd gene lives within me, too. While camping in the Catskills earlier this month, I found myself, a newly turned 28-year-old, stopping in my tracks at the sound of a bird call, as if by instinct. Scanning the wooded forest around me, a hand reached for the binoculars I do not own. I silently cursed myself for not having the Merlin app downloaded on my phone.
My come-to-birding moment has just happened to coincide with the newfound obsession our society has with bird-watching. At the office, I overhear my coworkers discussing Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching, a documentary that follows two non-birders who embark on an extreme bird-watching challenge across the United States. The self-funded film was released in the fall of 2025 to critical acclaim, helping bring the birding subculture to broader audiences. A couple of weeks ago, while scanning the New York Times, I saw a listicle for the best bird-watching podcasts. Speaking of podcasts, British actor Sean Bean, aka Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, hosts his own birding podcast, Get Birding, that offers an enthusiastic perspective on the hobby. Maybe there’s something in the air, but is everyone bird-watching? Is birding cool now?
Most recent data confirms a trend. It claims one in three Americans now partake in bird-watching, and the activity has piqued the interest of Gen Z. A combination of the pandemic’s get-outside boom, apps like Merlin Bird ID and social media communities on Instagram and TikTok has turned birding into a cool-kid hobby. It also coincides with the generation’s desire for a more analog lifestyle.
As someone who fits within this demographic and is plagued by her own phone addiction, the idea of getting outdoors and staring at something that isn’t a screen is appealing. The more I’m bombarded with AI slop, the more I yearn to be immersed in something real. The more Polymarket and Kalshi ads shoved down my throat, the more I hear of my male friends’ sports gambling addictions, the more I read about young men looksmaxxing and gooning, the more I appreciate my dad’s lifelong hobby. When modern-day masculinity seems to be defined by chiseled jaws and placing bets on war, it’s refreshing to find a gentleness in my 58-year-old father from birding.
I also find the affinity my dad has for nature and the respect he consistently shows the creatures who inhabit it to be noble. The patience, silence and calm it takes to sit for passing minutes to admire a common backyard bird is impressive. I find his childlike excitement over a hawk flying over the highway, or the fact that he still pulls the car over to watch a herd of white-tailed deer graze, to be endearing. I’m grateful that I was instilled with this affection and protectiveness for the natural world by my father, especially at a time when data centers and artificial intelligence stand to threaten it.
Last summer, while on a visit to Seattle, I took a sunset cruise on Lake Washington. The boat tour’s main attraction is the mega mansions that border the lake’s shoreline. In one home, through the giant glass windows, stands a museum-quality T. rex skeleton. The most notable property on the lake, however, is Bill Gates’ 66,000-square-foot compound known as Xanadu 2.0.
Only a few minutes into setting sail, our captain pointed out a bald eagle that was flying a few yards from our boat. It was my first time seeing a bald eagle in the wild. With Mount Rainer unusually visible in the background, the bird of prey flapped its giant outstretched wings and swiftly turned a corner as if to face us. As it flew adjacent to the boat, kissing the water, my eyes were immovable from its dark brown body, unnervingly sharp talons and stark white head. I didn’t tear my eyes from the winged creature, ignoring the monstrous lakeside homes my tour guide had shifted to talking about, until it soared away, out of view.
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