Birdist Rule #39: How to Tell Friends and Family That You’re a Birder

I didn’t start birding until the second half of my senior year of college, but once I was in, I was in all the way. Birders love to reminisce about these early days, when every bird is new and the whole world is new and the only thing that gets you down is the regret that you hadn’t started earlier in life. I loved birding from the moment I started, but I wasn’t sure about anyone else.

In those days—and years—I didn’t exactly volunteer the fact that I was a birder. On one birding trip just before I graduated college, I was interviewed at a rest stop on the New York Thruway about a recent toll hike, and I gave a quote I was sure to wind up in the story. (“This increase may seem small, but after awhile it really takes its . . . toll.”) But when the story was published, instead of boasting about my dumb wit to friends, I hoped no one read it, for fear that they would learn that I was on a birding trip.

What was I afraid of? I’m not really sure. Being made fun of, I guess. Birding isn’t considered nerdy in the Dungeons & Dragons kind of way (no judgment from me, that game looks fun as heck), but people seem to think birding is nerdy in some way. This cultural aversion to birding has never been explained to me, but as a typical college senior, I could certainly sense it. People think birders are old and out of touch, I suppose. Or that we lack social skills. Or simply that the way we exhibit our passion and excitement for birding betrays coolness. Again, it’s never been clearly explained to me.

The author Jonathan Franzen, himself coming to birding later in life, has detailed his own conflicted embrace of the hobby. He described his passion as an addiction, at once pleasurable to the user but with an attendant sense of shame at being held powerless. He’d hide his binoculars and field guide when out in New York and was mocked by his non-birder friends. (They were similarly unhelpful in explaining just what it is about birding that is so weird, saying only, “Because birdwatchers – ucch. They’re all so – ucch.” Alright, thanks.)

Franzen got a lot of flack from the birding community for admitting his thoughts on how our hobby is perceived culturally, but for me they rang true. I felt an odd sense of shame when I started birding, one that was as equally difficult to shake as it was to explain.

You, dear reader, may be feeling the same feelings, especially if you have just recently taken up the hobby.  Or, you may not have these feelings at all. In which case: Excellent! As I’ve said, there is no reason not to bird proudly. It’s just that for some birders it takes a little time and effort to get there. Those are the people I am speaking to now.

I find that these mixed feelings most often strike those who didn’t grow up around birding or birders. That was the case with me. I come from a long line of hunters and fishermen, folks who brought back animals with them at the end of the day instead of just marking them down in a journal. I didn’t have anyone to tell me what birding was or that it was just another normal outdoor activity.

More importantly, I didn’t have anyone to bird with. There just weren’t many birders my age around, or if there were, I didn’t know where to find them. Not having someone to go birding with or to talk about birding with, meant that I had to learn everything on my own. I didn’t know if I was doing the right things or going to the right places or wearing the right clothes (turns out, you can wear whatever you want). So it took a while before I become comfortable with other birders, and once I made some birding friends, I felt a lot more comfortable with the hobby and myself.

Comfort is the whole thing. If you’re not comfortable with letting everyone know you’re a birder, don’t let them know. Don’t worry about that part. In the early days, worry instead about how to get a handle on your own excitement—about how to figure out where the birds are and how you’re going to see them all. Worry about how you’re going to afford the gas to drive you all the way to the coast to see shorebirds. Worry about juvenile plumages.

Don’t worry about what you’re going to tell your friends and family. To be honest, you probably won’t be seeing a whole lot of your friends and family in the early days anyway.

If they ask (out of concern, perhaps), and if you’re not ready to be a public birder, just tell them you’re going hiking. You’re not lying, and everyone loves an outdoorsman. If they ask and you are ready, that’s wonderful. Say: “Mom, dad, I have fallen in love with the natural world, and my sudden infatuation has manifested itself in an intense interest in the pursuit and identification of birds.” Then grab your binoculars and run out.

They might be a little stunned, but they’ll be fine eventually. In the end, your friends and family just want to see you happy. And trust me, birding is a pathway to happiness.