Feathers Millions of people have taken up birdwatching. According to a report in USA Today, more than 60 million Americans consider themselves birdwatchers. Even the experts aren't sure why this hobby is growing so fast. There's been a lot of debate as to why birdwatching is taking off in popularity now. Of course, one theory is that as technology goes farther and farther and our lives become more removed from the natural world, there's some sort of an instinctive longing to reconnect with nature, and birdwatching is a very easy way to do it.
Birds are a lot more accessible than most other things.
They're easier to find than wild mammals, they're not as threatening to some people as wild reptiles, and they're a lot more cuddly than insects. Whether birds are cuddly is open to debate. But Bill Sharp says watching them is definitely habit-forming. Sharp is the education director at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in New York. Once you begin naming them, you notice them.