16 Nov Bringing back birdwatching: Nostalgic hobbies making a comeback amidst cost-of-living crisis
During the pandemic, six-in-ten Brits took up a new hobby – now, new figures reveal that 91% of these still continue to practice their hobbies taken up during this period. The study additionally showed that 65% of those who took up a new hobby say that it continues to be a great way to battle stress, while over half (57%) believe that their newfound passion helped improve their mood and boost mental health. Today, with many on the hunt for low-cost hobbies to take up this winter, particular as the cost-of-living crisis pulls harder on the purse strings of millions across the UK, some of the biggest activity exports from the pandemic are making a comeback. Serving as a testament to this, John and Natalie White, the co-Founders of Birda – a new birdwatching and social media platform – are available to discuss why nostalgic hobbies such as birdwatching are increasingly catching the eye of millions across the UK.
The popularity of birdwatching has grown exponentially across the country – with RSPB’s annual garden survey revealing that the number of people who reported which birds they could see in their gardens, jumped by a staggering 85%. Now, around six million people in the UK are regularly engaged in birdwatching – and it has also overtaken fishing as the number one hobby.
Turning your phone into an intuitive and powerful tool for logging the birds you see, Birda offers a free solution for those searching for a low-cost and relaxing hobby to take up as we fast approach the winter months. Whether you’re a serious birdwatcher or a newbie looking to expand your hobbies, all you have to do is download the app, head out for a walk and look up. Birda also emphasises that you don’t need to travel far to spot some of the rarest birds. For instance, last November, birdwatchers travelled to Papa Westray, one of the smallest islands in Orkney, off the far north coast of Scotland, to see the Varied Thrush – a species usually seen in North America and last spotted in the UK in 1982. Birdwatchers have also spotted unique species in the Capital, with kestrel sightings having been reported in North London.
App Features
No Expensive Kit Needed:
Birda turns every iPhone into an intuitive yet powerful tool for logging the birds you see – whether you know what they are or not. The interface is user-friendly for casual backyard bird admirers and serious birdwatchers alike. You can either log each bird you spot one at a time as you see it or log multiple bird sightings as part of a longer birding session. Track your progress by building lists of all the species you’ve spotted.
Curate Your Bird Collections:
Rather than filing all your bird sightings on one ‘all-time’ life list, Birda generates sub-level lists based on time and geographic location. For example, you can see a breakdown of each sighting you’ve logged over the last month or year and where you saw it.
You can also have a ‘home list’; Birda will automatically add the sightings you log within a radius of 500m around your home to this list. This privacy zone means the exact location of sightings at, or close to, your home is hidden from everyone except you.
Connect with Nature, Share with Your Community:
Get to know the wonderful world of birdlife all around you with Birda’s location-aware species lists. When you add a sighting record, the species list Birda shows you only contains the birds that have been seen in your general location (a +/-60km radius around you). This makes it simple to find the correct species and avoid confusing similar ones.
More advanced birders can choose the taxonomy they’d prefer to use. Birda includes the IOC – International Community of Ornithologists – Clements and Birdlife taxonomies and will assign one to you automatically based on your country, but you can change this in your settings.
Share Your Birding Adventures:
If you don’t know which species you’ve seen, simply post a picture of it and flag it as ‘unidentified’. When you do this, your followers are notified and asked to help with identifying what you’ve seen. Have fun watching the votes fly in for various species before accepting the suggestion you think best fits your feathered friend.
Make birding even more fun by keeping an eye on what your friends, family, or followers have spotted. Compete to collect species and unlock achievements.
Disconnect to Reconnect
Disconnect from the rat race and reconnect with nature completely by using Birda offline. Use offline mode in remote places where no signal is available or choose to turn your connection off anywhere. Some components will be unavailable offline but will reappear as soon as you are online again.
Get Happy with Healthy Competition:
Have fun competing with your Birda followers within the app to collect observations and see how many species you can spot. Why not compete in person too? Get outdoors with friends, family, or members of the Birda community. Enjoy time in the natural world together and log as many sightings as you can.
Birda is also great for teams, brand building, and community outreach. Encourage connection and competition between colleagues or companies. Create customised challenges for your brand.
Achieve and Protect:
In Birda, you can earn individual badges for specific goals and species, compete with your followers to see who can stay at the top of the leaderboard, and participate in local and national birdwatching challenges.
All the while, you’ll be helping conservationists protect a myriad of bird species. Anonymous combined logs from the app can be used by scientists and environmental protection organisations to create a picture of species movement. This will help to put the proper measures in place to support and safeguard them. You’ll also find local conservation activities to join and projects to donate to through the app.
