What Eighteen Anonymous Birders Like Best About Birding in 2026
By One of those Anonymous Birders
I asked a number of very experienced birdwatchers to tell me in a paragraph or so what they like best about birding in 2026. All of them were birdwatching before the age of electronics….pre-internet, pre-Merlin….and all of them continue to birdwatch. I specifically asked these birders to exclude the trends and attitudes and gadgets that they might dislike and to concentrate on what gave them joy in birding.
Here are their responses. Almost all of the co-authors live in Massachusetts. One lives in New Jersey, two live in Virginia, and one other lives in southeastern England.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1953. I started birding in 1971.
Here we are fifty-five years later and the thing that I most enjoy about birding is knowing the vocalizations of birds and sharing them with others. I thank my stars so many times when I am out walking, hear birds around me, and know what they are. When I got into birdwatching, I was amazed at the veterans’ ability to identify birds merely by hearing them. This was, of course, back in the days when one learned bird songs and calls three ways : listening to and watching the birds making their vocalizations, having experienced birders point out these vocalizations, and listening to birds songs on vinyl records. I did these things and before too too long people were asking me which birds were singing and expecting the right answer…and that was a kick.
I know we all wished fifty-five years ago that we might have a device to point into the trees that would tell us which calls were which. But we did not and so if one wanted to be a player in the birding world, it was look, listen, ask questions, and commit bird sounds to memory. Somehow, after fifty-five years, long after so many things have rattled out of my brain never to return, the bird sounds remain. And sharing them with people in the field is my great joy.
What I Like Best About Birding In 2026
I was born in 1943 and started birding for real in 1976. (Way too late, of course, and yes, I missed The Ross's Gull).
I love sitting on the porch with a cup of strong coffee and Merlin and the morning "paper" (or a good novel) and letting the e-device identify all the birds that I mostly cannot hear (high-pitchers like warblers and Cedar Waxwing). Once in a while I beat it to the punch when I happen to spot a silent Great Blue Heron ambling overhead.
All right, all right, I still do like to get up and out and chase down a really cool year-bird, and would make even more effort for a state lifer, and especially appreciate one that comes easily (Chestnut-collared Longspur).
I was born in the ‘50s and started birding in the ‘80s.
My favorite thing about birding in 2026? It is the continued opportunity to get out and see and photograph some of our birds on their spring and fall migrations. Coming up on the fall migration now I am particularly interested and anxious not to miss any of the shorebird or raptor species that might be close enough to see, not to mention some of the smaller, sometimes more colorful, passerines.
Inspired by my dad, a canoe-loving Mainiac, and influenced by my mom’s love of art, I have hoped to create my own art by photographing nature. With difficulties finding mammals to photograph, originally wild cats, and with the guidance from birdwatching friends, I landed on birding, a nature-based sport that was possible to enjoy on weekends and vacations in, or starting out from, the suburbs, with a 9-to-5 weekday job.
A note of interest to women, me included, is the progressively larger inclusion and acceptance of women field birders, especially it would seem, among European birding communities. It may be that we, sensible creatures, have become less concerned by the formerly male-dominated sport. It’s a happy thing!
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
[She sent a photograph she had just taken of an Australian sunset.]
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1971.
I started looking at birds when I was 5 or 6 years old, just because we had a bird feeder in winter and my dad wouldpoint out the birds to me. However, I really did not pay much attention tothem in my teens and 20's. In my 30's, when I was doing my doctorate at Cape CodNational Seashore on beach invertebrates (Piping Plover food), I saw a fellowbiologist get really excited about a dead Northern Gannet that had washed in on thebeach. I also heard my first Bobwhite and was stunned by an American Woodcock“peenting” behind a shrub in the backyard.
After graduate school, I moved to Boston and went on my first guided bird walksat Mount Auburn Cemetery and Arnold Arboretum. I was amazed by several birders’ ability to spew out warbler i.d.s based on calls. I joined Citizen Scientists atMount Auburn Cemetery in 2015 and and made a lot of friends. Someone suggested the CD "Birding by Ear," and I started listening carefully to birds in the field. It helped. And now, I have two jobs that draw on my bird knowledge (one of them isleading Citizen Scientists at Mount Auburn)! I am just so grateful for all the connections and wonderfullike-minded people I have met through birding.
What I like Best about Birding in 2026.
I was born in 1958. (I see this is a tricky way to find out how old your friends are.)
I started birding in 1990, when I made my earliest notes in a Golden Guide and a National Geographic Society Field Guide to North American Birds …..just single birds here and there.
I had no idea that people actually kept something they called a “Life List” of all the birds they had seen, or a “Day List” of all the birds they saw after a day of birding.
I started documenting and keeping a list of birds In 1996. My friends Joan and Dave were at my apartment in Cambridge one morning when Dave announced that there was a report of a Great Gray Owl in Rowley. Dave did not seem very excited about it but Joan and I perked up and said“Let’s go see it!.” Still, Dave was not too keen on driving all the way to Rowley, saying things like “We’ll never be able to find it.” Joan and I figured there would be lots of people looking for the bird, so let’s go!! And we did. Dave had the latest intel from the Mass Audubon Rare Bird Hotline and we headed to Rowley. We arrived to find what looked like hundreds of people standing along the road looking into a farm field.
We watched the Great Gray Owl from the road with the others. It perched on fence posts and it flew and hunted in perfect view for all its admirers. We could not have imagined a better day.
When we arrived back in Cambridge, sitting around the kitchen table Joan and Dave both asked for pen and paper and started writing. I asked them what they were doing and they replied they were making their bird day list. The Great Gray Owl would be a life bird and they would document the sighting in their “Birder’s Life List and Diary” when they got home. I never realized there was anything like this! And so, my Birding Life List began that day.
What I like best about birding in 2026 is the accessibility of information, using the ‘listening' function of Merlin, and the Sibley Field Guide apps made for our phones.
I am happy that I no longer need to carry around a field guide; those things are heavy! I am happy that I no longer need to start listening to Peterson’s Birding by Ear CDs in February in preparation for spring migration.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1943. I started birding in 1967.
I love that I have been birding with my husband since 1967 and learned to recognize birds in many ways over the years. Just recently, my neighbor in Vermont was very concerned about encountering a bear along the backroad where she lives and she asked me to accompany her on her after dinner walk. When a strange sound echoed from the woodside, my dear friend was petrified and said, “It’s a bear. I know it is.” “It isn’t a bear,” I assured her, “it’s a Barred Owl and that is its typical ‘Who Cooks for You’ call. There’s nothing to be worried about.” And, of course, there wasn’t.
Knowing bird calls has all sorts of advantages!
Seventy Years A Birder
I was born in 1944. I started birding in 1956.
Things have changed in such significant ways since I began birding as a kid. In the 1950s and 1960s vinyl records taught us bird songs…then cassettes started to appear. In the late 1900s, recording devices vastly improved. And now, in the 2000s, it is The Age of Merlin. Birders and legions of potential birders home and abroad can now quickly I.D. most bird sounds (but not mammals, amphibians, nor insects) with accuracy in the high 90’s.
In photography, digital cameras changed everything. Images are cheaper, faster, and much more easily forwarded.
Rare bird alerts, such as the Mass Audubon “Voice of Audubon”telephone hotline, have been around since the 1950s. The internet has now largely replaced telephone rare bird sites.
“Event Birds” came on the scene along the way and such ultra-rarities as the Ross’s Gull in Newburyport and the Red-footed Falcon on Martha’s Vineyard brought thousands of birders to Massachusetts and made national headlines.
The internet and sites such as eBird have greatly made things easier. eBird alerts on rarities caused many who had never seen either local cuckoo to dash to Rhode Island and watch a European Cuckoo that remained for days.
Birding has indeed changed from the days of shotgun ornithology. Technology has negated the rationale that a specimen is needed to confirm a rarity. Such vagrants can enrich the memories of so many with the click of camera and shared with our community.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1970. I started birding in 1986.
I started birding after going on a field trip with my high school biology class to the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. Like most birders, I was initially motivated almost entirely by finding new things. I mostly birded on my own or with my mother. Occasionally, the parent who led that field trip or my biology teacher would take me out. But without a consistent mentor, and being too cheap or ignorant to join the BBC, I learned by studying my Golden Field Guide. I would come home from school every day and pore over the plates in that book. Today, the internet, smartphone apps, and Merlin seem to have taken the place of the field guide. But I still love my bird books, especially field guides and I feel incredibly privileged to have access to the information about the birds of the world and birding the world that is presented in these books. A close second to books is Australian sunsets (or those in any other beautiful location).
I was born in 1951 and started birding in 1951.
I say that because my mother often told me that wherever I was, I was always following the flight of birds as they flew by. Back when I was being wheeled around Boston Common or Castle Island in a carriage, my eyes watched and my fingers pointed at birds. I guess flight amazed me. It still does.
The most significant reason I bird onward this year and every year is to attach another link to the end of the chain that is my birding life. I find it hard to tell people that ask why I birdwatch what the reason is. I don't ever see myself stopping this lifelong passion, and my need to proceed is my favorite part of every year's adventures. Birding has changed so much in the past few decades, but not for me. Also, the cast of characters I have met along the way, the good, the bad, and the others, are a wonderful part of our ever-expanding numbers.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1948.I started birding in the 1980s.
For me the fascination actually is and always has been the flight of birds. Something about being able to just take off and fly is magical.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
The best thing about birding in 2026 is that I am still able to enjoy it at ninety. Mostly I watch birds from my office, looking out at the bird feeder set-up that I perfected over many years.
What I Like Best About Birding in 2026
I was born in 1957, and a friend first introduced me to birding when I was about 16 years old. Back then, it offered a deeper, more dedicated connection to nature than just hiking in the fields or woods.
I still remember attending my first bird walk led by a knowledgeable birder. I learned a few new bird songs. Later that afternoon, as I walked up to my friend's house, I recognized my very first American Redstart entirely by its song.
During the spring, we visited a field on his property where American Woodcocks did their courtship display. We would try to get as close to them as possible. I remember being near enough to hear the subtle "umpa" part of their "umpa-peent" call. Watching them fly off into the twilight, listening to the twittering of their wings change as they zigzagged back down, and waiting through that moment of silence before the male started calling again was truly wondrous.
Decades later, what I like best about birding is that I can still connect so deeply through sight and sound. I love hearing a pair of Eastern Bluebirds calling "truly" as they fly over treetops, or hearing and then seeing them perched at the top of our large White Oak as the sun comes up. I enjoy watching Brown Creepers tracing their paths as they spiral up a tree trunk before gliding gracefully down to the base of the next one. And to be awakened by the sound of a pair of Great Horned Owls calling at 6:00 a.m. (as they did this morning) beats any alarm clock!
The simple joy of listening and watching is what keeps birding just as rewarding for me today as it was when I was younger.
I was born in 1958, was clearly interested in birds by the time I was four, and was birding pretty seriously by the time I was in junior high school.
What's great about birding now is the same stuff that has always been great about birding: birds are beautiful, complicated animals with fascinating ecology, and studying or even just observing them engages the whole brain in a pleasurable and rewarding way that very few other activities achieve. Advances in technology, including digital photography, AI identification tools, advanced I.D. information in guides and on the web, and instantaneous dissemination of information about unusual sightings have undoubtedly changed the game dramatically. But these are tools, to be used or not used according to circumstances and individual preferences, and I don't think they change the fundamental, rich dynamic of human minds interacting with a group of highly evolved and beautiful organisms.
I was born in either 1852 or 1952; feels like both, sometimes!
“Birding” is an ambiguous term, for me, but I was fascinated by backyard birds growing up in western Massachusetts as a youngster even if I didn’t know their names. By high school, though, learning to i.d. birds and finding them happened when I was introduced to people who had been doing it for years. I can still remember the first sighting of many species and thank those that helped bring me to those places where they were.
The best has always been being out in all kinds of weather and wondering why we mammals weren’t nearly as tough as birds. Imagine a chickadee every night in the midst of winter, freezing rain and ice, sitting mostly still on a branch. Or how to explain the same robin that comes back to the same yard for several years and has to navigate the entire hemisphere.
I followed two Europeans many years ago as they were trying to sneak up on a bird in the shrubbery. I stayed behind so I wouldn’t scare their quarry and finally the one in the lead made a muffled shout that this was clearly a lifer for them. It was a cardinal and I realized that there is no such thing as a common bird and every species can offer an incredible experience.
These days, the best part of birding is watching bird behaviors and interactions, and their remarkable efforts to keep on keeping on. A vulture lifting up against gravity without flapping its wings, a hummingbird staying still in midair with a blur of wings, or the sound of a loon on a northern lake at night. Too many things about birds are still nudging us to get beyond just keeping a list. It’s about understanding the living world.
I was born in 1956, started birding in 1989.
For years I travelled all over the ABA area to see more bird species and chased rarities as far away as Delaware. I try to be a conservationist now and keep my carbon footprint small, so I am content to keep my birding local, except for when I go away on vacation. And this year it was fun to watch a pair of bluebirds nest in one of our boxes and successfully raise two clutches.
I heard there were Purple Martins in Dunstable, so a friend and I went there and saw several flying around over the trees. This was a first for me seeing them inland in Massachusetts.
Born in 1971. Started birding in 1994.
What I like best about birding in 2026 is that I can expect to go birding locally and see more Wood Ducks, Gadwalls, Hooded Mergansers, Wild Turkeys, RT Hummingbirds, Clapper Rails, Sandhill Cranes, Am. Oystercatchers, Piping Plovers, Willets, Least Terns, Glossy Ibises, Great Egrets, Ospreys, Bald Eagles Red-shouldered Hawks, Barred Owls, Pileated Woodpeckers, Merlins, Peregrine Falcons, Yellow-throated Vireos, Common Ravens, Purple Martins, Brown Creepers, E. Bluebirds, and Pine Warblers than I did when I first started. Hooray! Also, I enjoy seeing more of the “southerners” like Black Vultures, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Carolina Wrens, Acadian Flycatchers, and Louisiana Waterthrushes as they start to fill in, although I may think differently moving forward,
One thing remains the same in 2026 as in any other year : my love of adventure and discovery when out in the field.
