On the Trail With Dayle: Feathered Friends with Benefits
“Paying attention to birds—and doing so in whatever way is accessible to people—supports a person’s health…Just noticing birds improves your health—and your community.”
–Robert Eugene Carter, Maricopa Bird Alliance board member and field trips chair, dietitian and diabetes education specialist (High Country News, April 2026)
I have tried to become a serious birder several times over the past few years. During the COVID pandemic, I thought birding could be one of those things—like sourdough baking or jigsaw puzzles—that would help me stay sane and healthy. I never started any sourdough and completed just one puzzle (Café Terrace at Night by Van Gogh) in early 2020. I once followed a rafter (or flock if you prefer) of wild turkeys around Sunset Hills Cemetery in the snow. But no serious birding, even when I had all the time in the world!
In October/November 2021, I took a 4,000-mile road trip from Bozeman to the Pacific Northwest, down through California, and back home via Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. I borrowed a pair of very good binoculars from a local friend and listened to an outstanding book about bird behavior: The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman. Despite traveling through eight states during bird migration season, I did not add a single bird to a life (or any other kind of) list. The binoculars spent the trip hidden under the front passenger seat.
More recently, I thought that Merlin Bird ID, the wildly popular app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, might finally turn my bird watching into a habit rather than an occasional pastime. I can report that I now have an online life list of 46 birds. This past March, on a wonderful visit to Costa Rica—a premier global birding destination—I added exotic Northern Emerald-Toucanets, Crested Guans, and Keel-Billed Toucans to my Bozeman Red-winged Blackbirds, Savannah Sparrows, and Cedar Waxwings.
While I have made some bird-watching progress, I do not meet any of the serious birder criteria listed by the Maryland Ornithological Society or even Google’s answer to “What makes a serious birder?” I’ve never participated in an organized bird count or driven miles to see a rare feathered species. However, I am now more appreciative of the raucous cawing of my neighborhood magpies. In Costa Rica, I was delighted to spot the twice-daily flyovers by pairs of Scarlet Macaws, and I do own a pair of quite nice Nikon binoculars.
You may have seen recent headlines with claims about birding leading to greater neuroplasticity and less cognitive decline. As a boomer who wants to be as neurologically nimble as possible, I clicked on The Tuned Cortex: Convergent Expertise-Related Structural and Functional Remodeling across the Adult Lifespan. Unfortunately, the full paper looks quite technical and is available for free only to subscribers of The Journal of Neuroscience. However, in articles for regular folks, the bottom line was clear: When comparing MRI images of expert and novice birders, the experts had more brain activity and denser brain tissue, regardless of age.
Like much scientific research, the conclusions had lots of “might,” “may be related,” and “could”—along with caveats about small sample sizes and other factors. Most importantly, the scientists recognized that the differences could be related to the experts being more active and/or spending more time outside. Those are my takeaways for my own bird watching and brain health: I want to be as physically active as possible and spend lots of time in natural spaces. I’m so grateful that I live in Bozeman where being active is easy—and where nature is around nearly every corner.
Like Mr. Carter, who is quoted at the top of this article, I am content with just paying attention to birds. If I remember to open the Merlin app and record new birds on my list, that’s cool. If I can tell the difference between a Western Meadowlark and a Yellow-Headed Blackbird, so much the better for my brain. If I contact the Sacajawea Audubon folks and volunteer for the 35th Bridger Mountain Raptor Migration Count on October 3–4, that could be amazing. Or maybe I will just take a walk with the birds in the Cherry River wetlands or Tuckerman Park woods.