After watching one of my favorite movies “The Big Year” that is based on a book written by Mark Obmascik, I was reminded of a term that has been quite controversial among bird nerds.
People often hear the terms ‘birders’ or ‘birding’ and ‘birdwatchers’ or ‘birdwatching’. I know the differences may not be crucial to most but to bird nerds it is an important distinction. There are other similar hobbies like fishing that carry a lot of term differences that mean a lot to the people that participate in it.
Bird watchers or bird watching is simply the act of looking at birds. Maybe you are out and notice some birds and just like to watch their flight, quirky behaviors, courtships, or just how they look in general.
Birders or birding is the actual purposeful act of looking for certain birds. Sometimes to increase a personal life list, or others try to get as many species as they can for instance in a Big Year competition. In competitions like those, like the movie and book mentioned above, you need to look for specific species of birds.
So in the above picture is me at around 4 years old. This was just the start of my bird nerdery 🤗🤓 so in the picture I was a bird watcher just happily watching to see whatever bird I could at any given moment. At present I am 40 years old and this year I’ve been sort of a hybrid between the two terms as I enjoy watching birds but also have been doing a unofficial big year just in curiosity to see how many different types I happen to see rather than just checking them off a general list. It’s been a fun life long adventure and I encourage everyone to be a bird watcher or birder to enjoy all our feathered friends whether by happenstance or on purpose 🤗
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