Why Gen Z - and me - have gone to the birds
Sunday, 7 June 2026
ESSAY: I have recently become interested in birds.
Not in a serious way nor even a particularly focused sort of one. I don't own a pair of binoculars, let alone an actual working thermos, and I'm not at all willing to stand in a swamp at dawn hoping to glimpse a Lesser Spotted Whatever.
But a few weeks ago I did interrupt a perfectly good conversation to tune in on a pretty warbling I was trying to recognise.
Then last week I did spend several minutes watching a pair of kererū go drunkenly about their business with all the grace of a dropped couch.
And yesterday I caught myself wondering whether the little brown bird in the garden was the same little brown bird I'd seen the day before. Weirder still, I came very close to downloading an app to help identify it.
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This weekend, when I mentioned my new special interest to my adult son he just shook his head in the same way he did when a few months ago I started talking about compost.
“I think you’re getting old,” he said.
“I think I’m getting cool,” I said.
Two things can be true at once and both of these are. The first needs no explanation while the second is due to the revelation that birdwatching is undergoing a hip new transformation.
Once a hobby that conjured tropes of older gentlemen in tweed jackets, younger people are now flocking to the pastime, citing a need to connect with nature and improve their mental and physical health.
Bird watching - also known as birding or twitching - is now the fastest-growing outdoor hobby for Gen Z, according to a study commissioned by the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Research published in May reported not only a 47% increase in birdwatching across all ages since 2018, but that nearly 750,000 people aged 16-29 now regularly do it - a tenfold increase since 2018.
It’s so popular that a newly announced scheme is now giving 16-to-24-year-olds free admission to RSPB reserves.
In the US, the pastime’s popularity is also taking off. In 2024 the Fish & Wildlife Service reported about 37% of Americans aged over 16 were taking part, while in 2022 birders spent $107.6 billion on their activities - think binoculars, transport and lodging for trips.
Nic Rawlence, associate professor of zoology at the University of Otago, says while birdwatching has always been popular in Aotearoa it’s now soaring to new heights.
“There has been a big uptick in the interest of postgraduate students, from NZ and overseas, wanting to work on our birds and their conservation.
“We are also seeing this in Birds New Zealand membership where the demographic is certainly trending significantly younger as a result, with a real increase in the number of student talks at the annual conference each year, which is fantastic to see.”
Rawlence agrees with overseas experts who have credited the Covid lockdowns with boosting the focus on birds. The lack of competing traffic noise and, well, anything else to do, made people more aware of their natural surroundings.
It’s a win-win situation for everyone, he says. Economy-wise, data from Tourism NZ shows 83% of future visitors want a wildlife experience such as birdwatching when they arrive, with tourists from Germany and the US among those ranking wildlife experiences most highly.
Ecology-wise, the benefits are probably even more important.
“The more people we can get interested in birds, the more pulling power and impetus for conservation.”
Richard Fuller, a professor in biodiversity and conservation at the University of Queensland says birdwatching - or citizen science - also improves human lives.
And while everyone knows that spending time in nature reduces stress, improves mood and supports mental well-being, Fuller says birdwatching goes a step further.
“Rather than simply visiting a park, people actively engage with the environment. They observe closely, record what they see and contribute to something larger than themselves. This sense of purpose can deepen the benefits of being outside.”
Fuller says another benefit is that citizen science is also inherently social as it brings people together to collect data, swap observations or learn from each other.
For some participants, especially older folks, that can be empowering.
“It provides opportunities to use existing skills, learn new ones and feel that their contributions matter. These interactions can help reduce social isolation which is a major factor for poor mental health.”
Back to Rawlence who says all of this makes particular sense in NZ where the famous biologist Jared Diamond once said that looking at our wildlife was “the closet thing to looking at life on another planet.
'We are a land that was ruled by birds.]The only mammals here when humans arrived were some bats and marine mammals like seals and sea lions.“
Which is perhaps why our birds seem so improbable. Kiwi shuffling through the undergrowth at night, Kākāpō booming in the dark, Tūī sounding like malfunctioning car alarms, and those Kererū launching themselves from branches with all the aerodynamic confidence of a thrown ottoman.
As for what I was watching in the garden, the little brown bird turned out not to be some rare endemic species at all. It was a blackbird, and not even a particularly interesting sort of one. It wasn’t even black, for goodness sakes.
But it was a good little thing in a time that’s currently full of very big bad ones. Things like hospitals, impossible bills, and all the other sorts of worries that come carrying clipboards and consequences.
For about 10 minutes I stood and watched that very ordinary blackbird scratch around beneath the lemon tree, almost certainly plotting a future assault on the spinach seedlings. It hopped under the hedge, flittered onto the fence, went about its business of seemingly not much at all.
My finances didn’t improve, nobody got cured, and no problems were solved but it was a nice thing to see. Nicer still to ever so briefly be paying attention to something small and alive and entirely separate from myself.
The bird flew off eventually. Then I looked for another one.