A Brief History Of Birding
Birding is more popular than ever at places like Point Pelee. In this episode we trace its history back to the days when we hunted birds indiscriminately and see how that tide changed over the course of a century with some very unlikely help.
EPISODE NOTES
The story of British POWs becoming accidental ornithologists while in captivity is a fascinating one and deserves more than I was able to give it in this brief history. Fortunately someone else has written a great article with some lovely visuals if you’d like to learn more about it.
Ditto the history of using birds in ladies’ fashion, and how it lead to the rise of conservation organizations. I actually wrote a blog post about this, back when I was writing more blog posts, if you’re curious about it. And if you’re extra-curious, there’s a wonderful book about it called Mrs. Pankhurst’s Purple Feather. It weaves the stories of two women fighting for change: one trying to protect birds, the other on the crusade for women’s suffrage. It’s one of those books that is so deeply and specifically researched it feels like reading a novel.
TRANSCRIPT
We are living in a Birding Boom. Which is not a surprise if you’re at Point Pelee in May, when cars line up at 4 in the morning and massive crowds assemble at the tip to catch sight of northbound migrants.
From outside, birding might seem… odd. Quaint. Old-fashioned. But it’s actually a fairly modern pass-time. And today we’re gonna take a whirlwind tour of how it evolved and flourished - with the help of ladies’ fashion, two world wars and a pandemic.
For centuries, if we’re not eating them, ‘collecting’ is our default with birds. It isn’t nice. At best it means caging them. More often it means shooting them to collect their skins and eggs.
And at the start of the 19th century, this is still how ornithology gets done. Birds are killed and reduced to a ‘study skin’ that can be examined leisurely and then shoved in a drawer. But ‘collections’ increasingly become a status symbol as well.
In fact through the 1800s, faster travel and more effective firearms turn ‘collecting’ into something of an obsession among the well-to-do. At the same time a rising trend in women’s clothing demanded ludicrous hats topped with ever more ludicrous numbers of feathers - if not entire birds. The worldwide slaughter threatens to wipe out whole species in the name of fashion, science and status.
It’s a real low point in history to be a bird. But it also coincides with rising public interest in natural history. And in response to the rampant killing, societies finally form on either side of the Atlantic to protect them. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Audubon Society are both still going strong.
Finally, people start to see the value in observing birds for their own sake. Ornithologist Edmond Selous has an epiphany with a couple European Nightjars, watching behaviour he’d never have seen if he’d, you know, shot them.
He starts to write passionately about the scientific merit of observing instead of killing birds. In 1902 he publishes ‘Bird Watching’, marking the first written record we have of that phrase.
And advances in optics make bird watching much more viable - the design of modern binoculars was only patented in 1893. The first field guide was still called Birds Through an Opera Glass.
So as the 20th century rolled on, bird watching - eventually just ‘birding’ - replaces bird killing. Powerful, durable binoculars are developed, thanks in part to the world wars. And birding becomes a welcome distraction for soldiers, even in POW camps. In 1940 an enterprising serviceman rallies his fellow inmates to record data on bird observations. He gets the support of Germany’s leading ornithologist and publishes a monograph using their data.
By the 1950s, birding has completely shaken off its eccentric, upper-crust roots and emerges as an egalitarian hobby. Or should that be eagle-itarian - never mind.
Even today with our infinite entertainment options it’s on the rise. In the 1970s, 4% of North Americans are interested in birding. By 2006 that’s gone up to 20%. It’s considered one of the fastest growing hobbies in the world.
And maybe its biggest boost, weirdly, was thanks to Covid-19. Cities conveniently locked down just in time for spring migration with a stir-crazy population itching for something to do. Birding web sites and apps saw massive spikes in traffic in those first few months, and we’re still riding that wave.
And that’s how we get back to the crowds at Point Pelee, always a renowned birding destination but now more popular than ever. And these days they come armed with tools previous generations of birders could only dream of. Just like optics revolutionized birding at the turn of the 20th century, a new wave of technology is doing the same right now, and turning every birder into a citizen scientist. And that is what we’ll be exploring next time.