Backyard Birdwatching: A Hobby Shared by 96 Million Americans

Here is a number that stopped me cold while I was arguing with the thermostat. In 2022, about 96.3 million Americans aged 16 and over watched, fed, or photographed wild birds.

That is more than 35 out of every 100 adults, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most of them, around 91 million, did their watching right around the house.

A good many of those same folks, about 42.6 million, also traveled a mile or more to find birds, so the two groups overlap and cannot simply be added together. Either way, the lesson is the same.

You do not need a passport or a gym membership to enjoy birds. For those of us over 50, a window and a cup of coffee will do just fine.

Just How Popular Is Birdwatching?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put hard numbers to this hobby in a 2024 report called Birding in the United States, drawn from its 2022 national survey. About 96.3 million people aged 16 and over watched, fed, or photographed wild birds that year.

Around 91 million of them, or 95 percent, watched birds around the home. About 42.6 million traveled a mile or more to look, and since a person can do both, those two groups overlap and add up to more than the total.

All together, Americans spent a remarkable 7.5 billion days birding. People who watched around the home averaged 67 days apiece, which is a peek at the yard most weeks of the year, while travelers averaged 34 days.

The agency does caution that its 2016 and 2022 surveys used different methods and should not be lined up to measure growth, so I will not pretend to know whether we are gaining ground. What I do know is this.

The hobby welcomes everyone. Nobody is too old, too creaky, or too busy to glance out a window, which is more than I can say for most of my relatives at dinner.

It All Starts With One Good Seed

Before you spend a dime on a fancy feeder, spend it on the right seed. We have a government scientist to thank for knowing which one. In 1980, Aelred Geis, a researcher with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, published a careful study of what feeder birds actually eat.

Before his work, seed mixes were thrown together out of habit and whatever grain was cheap. His answer, which still holds up, was black oil sunflower seed. It is about 40 percent oil, the rich winter fuel birds crave, and its thin shell is easy for small beaks to crack.

A later study called Project Wildbird, completed in 2008 and led by Dr. David Horn of Millikin University, reached the same conclusion, naming black oil sunflower among the seeds birds like best, along with sunflower chips, Nyjer, and white proso millet. Experts suggest black oil sunflower make up about 75 percent of what you put out, with a little millet mixed in.

Americans take this seriously. Project Wildbird found that more than 55 million people fed wild birds or other wildlife around their homes, spending more than 3.8 billion dollars a year on seed, feeders, and other accessories.

That is a lot of breakfast.

The Right Feeder in the Right Spot

A feeder is not complicated, which is a relief for those of us who still cannot program the microwave clock. A simple tube feeder or a flat platform will do, and Project Wildbird found those two styles drew the most visits.

Hang it where you can see it from your favorite chair, because a feeder you cannot watch is just an expensive squirrel buffet. Speaking of squirrels, they will find your seed.

A baffle, which is a dome or cone that blocks their climbing path, helps more than yelling through the glass, though yelling is free and surprisingly satisfying. In winter, many folks add a cake of suet, which is rendered fat that gives birds extra calories when the weather turns mean.

Here is the part people get wrong. Windows can hurt birds, which mistake the reflection of sky and trees for open air. Older advice to set feeders very close to the glass is no longer considered reliable by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The dependable fix is to treat the glass itself. Cover the whole outside surface with markings spaced about 2 inches apart, or put an exterior screen over the pane. And give the birds a nearby shrub for cover when the neighborhood hawk comes shopping.

Project FeederWatch Turns Your Window Into a Lab

Once birds are showing up, you can put them to work for science. Project FeederWatch is a winter survey run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada. Its roots go back to 1976, when a Canadian ornithologist named Erica Dunn started the Ontario Bird Feeder Survey through the Long Point Bird Observatory.

After a successful ten year run with more than 500 takers, the idea grew into the program we know today, which launched in 1987. The season runs each year from November 1 into late April.

Here is how the counting works, and it is simpler than it sounds. You pick two days in a row and watch your feeders as much or as little as you like, as often as once a week, with at least five off days in between counts recommended.

You do not add up every visit. Instead you write down the most of each kind of bird you see at one time, so you never count the same chickadee twice. More than 20,000 people take part each year.

The U.S. fee is 18 dollars, or 15 for Cornell Lab members, and members get the Living Bird magazine in digital form, a year end look at the data, and, if they want it, a welcome kit with a feeder bird poster and calendar.

The Great Backyard Bird Count: Four Days in February

If a whole winter sounds like a commitment, there is a shorter version that costs nothing. The Great Backyard Bird Count is a four day event held in the middle of February.

The next one runs February 12 to 15, 2027. It was launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, and it was the first online citizen science project to collect bird data and show results almost as they arrived.

Birds Canada joined in 2009 to help Canadian birders take part, so today three groups run it together. This past February, the 2026 count reached a record. Organizers estimate that about 1,146,284 people joined in from 216 countries or eBird subregions.

Those folks turned in 467,696 eBird checklists and saved more than 1.2 million bird identifications in the Merlin app. To join, you watch birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more of the four days and report what you see through eBird or Merlin.

You can do it from your yard, a park bench, or the passenger seat while someone else pumps the gas. There is no fee and no experience required.

Keep It Clean, Add Water, and Keep a List

A bird feeder is a dinner party, and like any dinner party it needs tidying up. Dirty feeders can spread disease among birds, so give yours a good scrub every couple of weeks with hot, soapy water and let it dry before you refill it.

Rake up the hulls and droppings underneath now and then too, because nobody likes eating over a mess, not even a chickadee. If you can manage it, put out water. A shallow dish or birdbath, kept from freezing solid in winter, will bring in birds that never touch seed at all.

Then do the one thing that turns feeding birds into loving birds. Keep a little notebook on the windowsill and jot down who shows up. The cardinal that comes at dusk. The woodpecker that bangs on the suet like he is remodeling.

Over a season you will start to know them, and knowing them is the whole point. My mother kept such a list for years. I found it after she was gone, and it read like a diary of every quiet, happy morning she ever spent.

Here is my advice, and it is cheaper than most things I recommend. Buy one bag of black oil sunflower seed and one simple feeder, and hang it where you can watch from the kitchen window.

To keep the birds safe, treat that glass with markings about two inches apart across the whole outside surface, or cover it with an exterior screen. Give it a week. The birds are cautious at first, like the rest of us when something new shows up, but they will come.

And once they do, you will catch yourself lingering at the glass with your coffee going cold, grinning at a sparrow for no reason at all. That, friends, is the good life.

It was sitting in your own backyard the whole time, waiting for a little seed.

Sources

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Birding in the United States: A Demographic and Economic Analysis, Addendum to the 2022 National Survey (2024)
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada, Project FeederWatch, How to Participate (2026)
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and Birds Canada, Great Backyard Bird Count 2026 Final Results (2026)
• Wild Bird Feeding Institute, Project Wildbird Final Report, David Horn, Millikin University (2008)
• National Sunflower Association, Wild Bird Feeding Industry
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Aelred Geis, Relative Attractiveness of Different Foods at Wild Bird Feeders (1980)