Bird watching, however, offers things that those other passions do not. It’s Accessible No matter where you are in the world or what type of environment you are in (city, suburb, country, mountains, forest, countryside, swamp, seaside, or sea), the presence and variety of birds is astounding. With the birds, no matter the time of year, there is always something to see. Also, birds communicate in the same way that we do, through sight and sound. They have developed an impressive range of patterns and colors and, among songbirds, an amazing musical repertoire, and we humans are equipped to revel in it.

But beyond all that, we love birds for one simple reason: they can fly. We watch them launch effortlessly into a boundless environment while we remain grounded and inspired to dream. Imagine watching the land and sea unfold below you, not through the windows of an airplane, but under your own power.

The things you’ve left behind become insignificant, put into new perspective by a commanding vantage point. What it must be like to be suspended in the wind, how radically different to conceive of movement not in two dimensions, not just back and forth, left and right, but in three: always infinite possibilities of direction, the body rising and falling. at will. We look up to the sky at the birds and see what it means to be free.

***

Of the many disorienting twists in the aftermath of the Central Park incident, one of the most unexpected is that my voice is now being amplified on matters I have always spoken about, including preaching the gospel of bird watching.

In 2021, National Geographic invited me to host a birding TV show, “Extraordinary Birder.” and I said yes. The result is that now I find myself living an absolute dream. I spend my time touring the continent in search of iconic species, having up-close encounters with the rarest of birds (there’s nothing closer than looking through an endoscope into the body of a Puerto Rican parrot, or iguaca, to check its testicles), and to be privileged to tell the heartbreaking and inspiring stories of the conservation of these birds, and of the truly extraordinary farmers, biologists and birders dedicated to these efforts, on camera to a massive audience.