On the Ethics of Bird Watching

Baseline is the environmental condition collaboratively created by all animals and birds—all their creeping, crawling, hopping, grazing, prowling, and flying; all their barking, howling, chattering, grunting, whinnying, and singing. It is the intricately woven tapestry of the preferred status quo, and every creature adds its particular contribution to this “baseline symphony”…

~John Young, from What the Robin Knows

I took many guided bird-walks last spring, but one in-particular left me with an unforgettable image. About a dozen of us stood in a tight group behind our guide on a loamy patch of woods, getting “warbler neck” while staring at the tops of spruce fir. We were trying to glimpse a Canada warbler who’d been teasing us with his erratic whip of a song but hiding stubbornly behind the highest spruce boughs. Suddenly, a ten-year-old girl dashed to the front of the group chanting, “Mob! Mob! Mob!” and stomping her foot in rhythm.

She wanted the guide to play their cacophonous recording of panicked songbirds mobbing a predator. The guide had used this method a few times during our walk as a magic wand to call in “uncooperative” birds. I, too, was desperate to gaze upon this bird I’d only studied in field guides thus far—to see the contrast of its stark-white eye-ring against its slate-colored back. To marvel at the black necklace it wears against a lemon-yellow chest. Truth-be-told, a part of me wanted our guide to call in the bird…by any means necessary…until I remembered what the warbler might have been doing instead of appearing for our observation and pleasure.

Photo courtesy of Cornell Lab All About Birds

We were in peak spring migration. The Canada warbler—five-inches long, weighing four ounces—had just flown three-thousand miles from South America, stopping here to rest and refuel before moving north to his boreal breeding grounds. Did I have a reason—beyond my own curiosity and pleasure—to raise this creature’s stress hormones and interfere with his recovery? Were there less intrusive ways I could feed my curiosity and wonder? Was it really worth it to observe alarm behaviors right now rather than wait longer to observe baseline behaviors?

I remembered this walk recently while I watched How to Be a More Responsible Birder on the amazing Black Swamp Bird Observatory’s member portal. The presentation focused on the American Birding Association’s (ABA) code of ethics. Asher Corbet, one of the presenters, spent some time on the nuances among the concepts of lawful, moral, and ethical. The crux of the discussion centered around prioritizing the welfare of the birds, not only in a global, environmental sense, but also while watching them in the field.

What is our responsibility to the bird we are watching in the moment, and does it supersede our curiosity and desire to see him?

I often feel overwhelmed by my urge to observe an elusive bird, and I don’t always make the ethical choice. Sometimes I make subtle alarm calls, or “pish,” to call the bird into view. Occasionally I use birdsong, or “playback,” on my iPhone. But the more I read about these methods—how they alarm the birds, costing them scarce energy resources they could instead be spending on caring for themselves or their chicks—the more I search for other ways to interact with them.

Recently I have taken a deeper dive into studying bird songs and calls so I can hear which birds are on the landscape, even if I can’t see them. If I have time, I’ll find somewhere close by to sit—for five, ten, even twenty minutes—and wait, binoculars in hand, for the bird I’ve heard to appear. Having followed the extraordinary work of Vermont’s own Bridget Butler, aka The Bird Diva, I’ve learned that it takes about twenty-minutes of being relatively still for birds to consider us a part of the landscape. Only then will they resume their ordinary habits. This method, inspired by The Bird Diva’s “slow birding” philosophy, often leads to more extended and meaningful interactions with birds, allowing us to observe their usual maintenance behaviors rather than mere glimpses of them fleeing in alarm.

If I’m short on time, I’ll simply study the bird in a field guide and plan to return to the same spot later, with a camping chair and a warm drink.

To me, birding ethically means ensuring that my presence adds to birds’ welfare rather than detracts from it. While it might be necessary, at times, for field scientists to call birds in to collect reportable data for conservation purposes, it isn’t when birding for leisure. Might we, therefore, let go of the pressure to “collect” birds for our life lists, and instead, relate to them on a deeper level—like we do with friends and neighbors? Don’t relationships take time to cultivate?

A few weeks ago I was sitting on a lawn chair in my yard, scribbling something into the boxes in my planner, when I finally saw him. From the corner of my eye, a tiny flash of yellow, then a rustling in the leaves. Thankfully, my binoculars were close at hand, and I was able to grab them just in time to see the yellow belly, the eye ring, the faded black necklace of a Canada warbler. What a privilege to have him stop in my yard for some wild berries and a rest on his way to his southern breeding grounds. There I sat—still and quiet—watching him forage for a while—as long as any warbler might allow—though not long enough for a decent photo.

Coming up…Suggestions for setting up winter bird-feeding stations.