This Psychologist Wants to Hear About the Moment You Fell in Love with Birds

Jenn Lodi-Smith could have fallen in love with birds at many points in her life. As a young girl, she watched her mom photograph shorebirds on Assateague Island. As a teenager, she marked up a Peterson Field Guide—then forgot about it. Lodi-Smith liked birds, but she never became enamored. For many years, they flew past each other, their paths crossing only for brief moments.

Decades later, it was her nature-loving kids who finally turned Lodi-Smith into a full-blown birder: The older one “became the most themselves when they were out in the natural world,” Lodi-Smith says, while the younger racked up a collection of bird books and stuffed animals. Today the family volunteers at a bird banding station, leads a young birder organization, and vacations at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine, where visitors can boat out to puffin colonies. Hog Island was where Lodi-Smith, early in her bird-loving years, learned about “spark birds”: a term birders use for the animals that inspired their avian adoration.

She was instantly captivated. Currently a psychology professor at Canisius University in Buffalo, New York, she has spent the past 20 years studying how transformative life events like going to college can influence a person’s personality. Finding a group with its own term for such a moment felt like a sign—and Lodi-Smith decided to follow it.

In 2022, she launched the Spark Bird Project, a community science initiative to collect data from birders around the country in the form of “spark bird stories.” Participants describe the moment they got hooked on birds, primarily through an online survey, and muse on why it was transformative. Along with building a public archive of those stories on the project’s website and podcast, Lodi-Smith is analyzing them to figure out what makes a person fall head over heels for birds, and—of interest to the project’s community partners—how these moments can be facilitated.

So far, Lodi-Smith has collected nearly 250 stories from hard-core birders and ornithologists, as well as those she calls “bird curious.” She recruits participants with the help of regional partners who solicit stories from their members, including the Roger Tory Peterson Institute (RTPI) and Hog Island Audubon Camp, and aims to widen her outreach later this year with presentations at the Arizona and Chicago Birding Festivals. In the meantime, she’s already started analyzing the data and plans to eventually publish the results.

The stories are already showing some clear trends. First, a spark bird moment can happen at any point in life. While the most common age is 10, participants record their spark moment as late as age 71. (On the other hand, Lodi-Smith logged her younger child’s spark age as “0” because 11-year-old Maisie can’t recall ever not loving birds.) Loud and visually distinct birds like Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays are, unsurprisingly, among the most popular spark bird species. But the stories mention 205 diverse species—a range that suggests the circumstances of the moment matter as much as the bird itself. In fact, when it comes to the most commonly mentioned spark species, humans—often bird-loving family members or friends—take the top spot. Two-thirds of stories include interpersonal connections, such as spotting an eagle while kayaking with a sister or deciphering bird songs in a grandmother’s garden.

Partners hope the project can help them create the conditions for more people to fall in love with birds. For instance, the stories show that expanding entry points to nature is key, says RTPI chief executive Arthur Pearson. At RTPI, an art and nature museum, such efforts already include offering free entrance to those on food assistance and leading community programs that introduce people to the institute. The responses also show the importance of providing binoculars, field guides, and other concrete resources, says Lodi-Smith.

To sustain a lifelong passion for birds beyond one initial moment, though, community is crucial, the stories suggest. While many nonprofits already work to foster those connections, having quantitative evidence can help them build a case for grants, says Rosy Tucker, who manages public programs on Hog Island. The Spark Bird Project can also help redefine ideas of who gets included in the birding community by offering insights into how different people engage with birds.

“I have a lot of people in my life that are birding every day by watching their bird feeders but might not consider themselves to be a birder because they don't, like, have a life list,” says Tucker. To collect stories from a wider range of participants who might have different relationships to birding, Lodi-Smith is partnering with organizations such as Birdability, a nonprofit that improves outdoor access for those with disabilities and chronic health conditions.

Cultivating more birders is good for the planet, Lodi-Smith suggests, because birds motivate people to care about the environment and support conservation work. Birdwatching also offers a host of physical, mental, and emotional benefits, says Birdability director Cat Fribley. Those benefits were central to her own spark bird moment in 1990. Fribley was discussing her recent PTSD diagnosis with her college roommate and best friend Linnea while on a walk to class, when Linnea interrupted to point out a bird—either a Red-bellied Woodpecker or some kind of flicker; Fribley doesn’t quite remember. Looking at the bird, “my brain got quiet,” she recalls. In the years since, birding has grounded her and brought her deep joy. “There is a real power in that kind of externally focused mindfulness,” she says.

Similarly, birds have helped Lodi-Smith through periods of grief, chronic pain, and work stress. But through the project, she’s seen how the act of storytelling itself offers healing, too, by helping people to better understand themselves and others. “It’s like therapy for the birding community,” says Lodi-Smith. “We need to tell these stories.”

This story ran in the Fall 2025 issue as “On the Origin of Birders.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.