Birding and Wellness

For me, birding is a form of mindfulness, which helps me focus on what’s in front of me, rather than the pain in my body. The best part is birds are always there, always present around us. Nothing makes me happier than paying close attention to birds, observing the details of their lives and the subtle shifts in their behavior. Plus, being outside is itself restorative and re-energizing. Just feeling the elements, hearing the sounds, breathing the fresh air strengthens me.

Birding has become an all-consuming hobby which I’m totally addicted to. As a geologist and lifelong lover of nature, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed overprinting the mineral deposits and geology sector of my brain with the science of ornithology!

This new passion has also changed my life in a very unexpected way. I have discovered I gain great satisfaction in sharing my new-found knowledge and love of birds with others, with the less-than-subtle ulterior motive that the more people I can get hooked on birds, the more people there will be who care about them, their habitats, conservation, and climate change. I was not even on social media while working and could never have anticipated that in my future I’d be posting daily bird photos on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky, all under the handle “The Birder Bob.” In addition, I’ve been privileged to share my passion for birds through both online speaking engagements and live book talks, hopefully inspiring others to take up binoculars and find fulfillment and physical comfort through birding.

For the author, birding is more than a hobby: It has transformed his life and helped him live with Lyme disease. Whether scanning treetops or simply watching his feeders at home, he finds both healing and joy in observing birds. By immersing himself in the moment, birding helps him manage pain and chronic illness by shifting his focus from pain to wonder.

The second avenue for speaking has been my book talks, which I’m surprised to say organizations are still requesting over two and a half years after publication of my book, Out of the Lyme Light and into the Sunlight: Birding as Therapy for the Chronically Ill. I am proud that I’ve given my talk over two dozen times to groups across Ontario, and even to the NYC Bird Alliance.

One thing that I’ve discovered, since the pandemic restrictions were lifted, is that I far prefer giving my talk in person rather than on Zoom. On the latter, I often feel like I’m just talking to myself, and missing out on the visual and audio feedback one gets from a live audience. Despite being in a large group, my Lyme anxiety in crowds is lifting when talking about birds, seeing people react positively to my passion for them, and hearing the audience laugh at some of my corny jokes. This is very rewarding and energizes me to be even more emphatic about the amazing world of birds.

Another added benefit of in-person talks is that inevitably at least a few members of the audience approach me to share their own experiences of how birding has benefited their health and well-being. In my talk, I emphasize that I am a big proponent of birding to what I think of as your “birdability,” that you take out of it whatever you can or enjoy, and not compare yourself to more experienced birders. For example, if your health does not permit you to physically go birding, you can enjoy watching nest cams or feeder cams from around the world, in the comfort of your home.

To have gone from being the CEO of a mineral-exploration company to a speaker trying to inspire people to care for birds and find comfort and healing effects in them is certainly not something I ever saw in my career or retirement path. Engaging with people has given me new purpose and motivation to stay positive and deal as well as I can with what life has thrown at me. In the past year, I had a new challenge with a recurrence of a different health issue that required several months of intense treatment.

On a golden January morning, the author and a birding friend set out early in search of a Barred Owl known to frequent a nearby provincial park. They found it bathed in perfect sunrise light, and shared a quiet, magical moment.

During this time, when I was unable to get out birding, I spent hours at my desk, watching my backyard birds, while writing two new books. In Out of the Lyme Light, I had described a few of my mineral-exploration adventures, in order to show how active I’d been pre-Lyme and how that all came to a screeching halt. A number of readers mentioned that they’d love to hear more of those stories, so I’ve written what is essentially a prequel, which I hope to publish: Tales of a Migratory Geologist: Before Birds There Were Rocks.

In describing some harrowing adventures, such as marauding bears or surviving a helicopter crash and other travel tales that took place from the Andes of Peru and Amazon of Brazil to Greenland and the boreal forests and tundra of northern Canada, the Outback of Australia to the jungles of Indonesia and New Guinea, I found myself repeatedly writing that I wanted a life do-over! Why? Because of all the birds I missed!

I was not a birder then, and, even if I had been, I was too busy to devote much time to birding. I joke that I might have been fired for paying attention to birds at the expense of the rocks. However, I am privileged to have seen many far-flung corners of the Earth where birders have to pay huge sums of money to visit. I can’t even imagine how many thousands of species I could have on my life list if I’d been hooked like I am now.

I was barely paying attention to the macaws, toucans, and Burrowing Owls I saw in Brazil, or the enormous hornbills that flew over me in Papua Province, Indonesia, bustards in Namibia, or unknown birds flitting over the tundra in the Arctic that were likely Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs in breeding plumage! Reflecting back, I can only imagine how those birds would have made me smile and reduced the stress in my work life.

I certainly pay attention to birds now, while out birding and while sitting at home. The second book I have written is a coffee-table style collection of photos of my backyard birds and assorted wildlife, which I’ve titled Looking Out My Window: Bob’s Backyard Birds. When Lyme forced me into premature retirement and I moved to my current home, I had no idea how uniquely “birdy” my backyard was. Keeping an eye on my feeders, which have attracted such visitors as Scarlet Tanager, Rusty Blackbird, and Indigo Bunting, was the start of my discovery that watching birds got my mind off my aches and pains. In irruptive years, I’ve been host to dozens of Evening Grosbeaks, Redpolls, and Pine Siskins.

Birds and birding have made my life with Lyme disease not just tolerable, but also wonderful. The joy birds bring me in all seasons helps me focus on wellness rather than discomfort, and that feeling is compounded by the joy of sharing birds with others. I hope this article and my story helps others who may be on their own paths of healing to think about how birds and birding can be integrated into their own wellness.

Acknowledgments

I was honored when Birding Editor Frank Izaguirre asked me to write an article about how birding has helped me live with my chronic Lyme disease. I chronicled my journey, including my frustrating experience of obtaining a diagnosis and getting treatment for Lyme, in my book, Out of the Lyme Light and into the Sunlight: Birding as Therapy for the Chronically Ill. Frank was kind enough to write a lovely foreword for my book, and arranged for it to be reviewed by Harry Armistead in the Sept. 2023 issue of Birding. I will close this article with the same paragraph that I used to close Out of the Lyme Light: “Life is a journey, and it is incumbent on us to make the best of it. I hope my journey might inspire some folks suffering with a chronic illness to get out of the ‘Lyme light’ and into the sunlight, where the singing birds will warm your heart and lift your spirits.”