Erik Wing, who led this research at Baycrest Academy for Research and Education in Toronto, Canada, compared MRI brain scans from bird experts to those of novices while they identified birds. He found that expert brains were wired differently in regions important for functions like attention, visual perception and visual recognition.
The study only (?) looked at the brains of birdwatchers, the paper extrapolates the study to make assertions about the brains of active subject experts in general.
acadapter · 2026-10-26 10:00:32 UTC
I agree, it would be interesting to see if there are some cognitive advantages associated with the "special interests" personality traits, in general.
aheckler · 2026-10-26 10:03:03 UTC
Nominative determinism strikes again.
jimnotgym · 2026-10-26 12:17:21 UTC
"He found that expert brains were wired differently in regions important for functions like attention, visual perception and visual recognition."
Can we be sure that happened because of the bird watching, or did they reach expert level because their brain is wired differently?
melvinroest · 2026-10-26 09:55:06 UTC
I knew it! Those 30 and 40 somethings are always up to something. You never see them, never hear them, but here they are slowing their cognitive decline. They are clever little rascals. They're just like the species they're watching.
But I created a set of amazing binoculars with automatic AI age detection via radar for the small friendly price of 39.49$. Looking for a bird watcher? Get the SilentBirdWatchDectector 3000 and slow your cognitive decline at double the rate.
Don't watch the birds, watch the bird watchers instead. They may do something interesting.
(I'll see myself out...)
etcetcetcetceta · 2026-10-26 10:44:23 UTC
look, look! A millenial father observing bird species in an effort to stave off cognitive decline, rarely seen away from his burrow and demanding offspring, we can see from its markings that this one was once a hipster, note the foliage pattern about it's left radiocarpal.
bob778 · 2026-10-26 09:55:09 UTC
If you haven’t seen it, Listers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-wAqplQAo) provides a great glimpse into what competitive birdwatching looks like. It’s nothing like casual birdwatching.
albinn · 2026-10-26 10:23:33 UTC
Absolute banger documentary, rewatched it last week with my SO!
dstu · 2026-10-26 10:30:28 UTC
I can’t recommend this documentary enough. The algorithm dropped it onto my YouTube homepage one day and I wasn’t expecting to watch more than a few minutes but I was drawn in immediately.
I don’t consider myself a birder but I’ve got into nature photography in recent years and it’s such a joy to get out for sunrise or sunset and to come home with a special shot.
onidj · 2026-10-26 11:42:36 UTC
It's so good. Nature documentary made by a pair of endearing dirtbags.
semolino · 2026-10-26 11:44:57 UTC
Great doc. Also recommend the classic Encounters: Twitchers (1996) as a spiritual precursor.
koziserek · 2026-10-26 12:12:17 UTC
nice.
Still, competitive birdwatching sounds like competitive meditation :)
dmtroyer · 2026-10-26 14:58:04 UTC
I won't spoil the ending for you, then.
JackMorgan · 2026-10-26 12:38:56 UTC
I watched this is and it's such a great documentary. I really want to take a year now and try to get at least in the top 25% of birders for the year. I was into casual birding before (it's my favorite thing to do when traveling to a new place, just wander around the area and spot local birds). But now I'm loving the idea of these monthly or annual "competitions"
Rapzid · 2026-10-26 14:08:52 UTC
Really great.
Havoc · 2026-10-26 10:02:00 UTC
I guess in some ways its the opposite of doomscrolling - outdoors & requires patience for the dopamine payoff
asphodele · 2026-10-26 13:19:20 UTC
There's the "always on" type of birdwatching as well, that allows you to recognize the birds you see and hear in the course of ordinary life. No patience required, just practising staying aware of peripheral vision and sounds, but equally rewarding when you are lucky enough to have a chance encounter.
tomaytotomato · 2026-10-26 10:04:56 UTC
Just a bit of anecdata (observer bias).
A lot of, "birdwatchers" I see travelling to remote parts of Scotland and other places in the UK are generally wealthy retirees, with nice kit (Rab clothing, telephoto lenses, VW campervans).
Cognitive decline is shown to impact disproportionately on less wealthy people. So is there a trend with economic wealth and outdoor hobbies like birdwatching? I'd hazard a yes.
On a side note, the Merlin bird ID app from Cornell University is great.
flexagoon · 2026-10-26 10:18:09 UTC
> On a side note, the Merlin bird ID app from Cornell University is great.
Do you know how it compares to iNaturalist? I'm not a birdwatcher, but I have iNat on my phone and sometimes use it to identify birds, and it seems to do a great job.
t_mahmood · 2026-10-26 10:38:42 UTC
I have tried both. Merlin is best for bird watching. It does not ask to upload any data. Just start the recording, it listens and let me know what is the bird is. Done. It only uploads, IF I want it upload.
bluebarbet · 2026-10-26 13:33:37 UTC
A FOSS alternative is WhoBird, available on F-Droid and pretty good.
t_mahmood · 2026-10-26 14:01:02 UTC
I tried that too, but it wasn't very good.
hackersnooze1 · 2026-10-26 13:29:39 UTC
iNaturalist/Seek only does photos doesnt it? Merlin can do sounds which is much much more useful for birds.
Myrmornis · 2026-10-26 15:12:07 UTC
No comparison when it comes to sound. Try Merlin's abilities to identify bird sounds if you haven't yet.
eichin · 2026-10-27 00:30:35 UTC
https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/the-magic-of-merlin/ for background, but I've always been floored by how well "make spectrogram plots and then use image recognition techniques on them" works, it feels like something you'd invent as a technobabble special effect in a scifi movie :-)
Myrmornis · 2026-10-27 03:38:48 UTC
Right! Do you know how well the problem of multiple overlapping vovalizations has been solved? But anywway yes it's fantastic, and really cool that the models (Bird Packs to download on a phone) are becoming available for many more places around the world. I had been wanting to try it on South American birds for years and finally got the chance this year in southeastern Brazil and it was especially amazing in a place where I can place way fewer of the vocalizations.
2b3a51 · 2026-10-26 10:19:09 UTC
> "Her team's findings have prompted German health insurance companies – who, among others, initially funded the research project – to invest in setting up bird feeders and viewing areas in more than 400 nursing homes across Bavaria. "It was so effective, it just economised money," Kals says."
Perhaps we need to provide opportunities for less well off people to access nature? It might have a positive cost-benefit. And design care homes around gardens? 'forest bathing' is apparently often recommended in Japan based on studies of blood pressure and other physical indicators.
Munlochy: if you ever saw a geezer wearing an ex-army parka, builders safety boots with Opticron bins it might have been me. I don't get up there often enough to warrant the pricey stuff.
hlynurd · 2026-10-26 10:24:19 UTC
Did they adjust for demographics?
trollbridge · 2026-10-26 11:18:32 UTC
Yes. The study was from a uniform sample of people and then they installed bird feeders.
dan-robertson · 2026-10-26 10:44:52 UTC
You have quite a biased sample because most people are not going to suffer going to remote parts of Scotland to look for birds, so you are only seeing the more devoted birdwatchers.
Birdwatching can still be enjoyed in most places without needing to travel far. Birds are less active in bad weather so you don’t need expensive outdoor gear, and in many places there will be freely accessible nature reserves with hides in which one can sit in shelter to watch birds.
The highest quality glass is going to get pretty expensive (camera lenses can get to the region of $20k; binoculars $4k or so) but there are also much cheaper options and often these can be quite reasonable: you don’t need to take photos of birds; a superzoom point-and-shoot can work great; more expensive binoculars make a bigger difference in low light and if you’re young (older people’s pupils won’t dilate as much so bigger objectives at a lower magnification won’t be a huge help).
I feel like mostly you’re observing that rich people spend lots of money on their hobbies and not that opening your eyes to look at birds is some expensive exclusionary activity.
72deluxe · 2026-10-26 12:14:07 UTC
Even better, older Nikon DSLRs are now cheap with many F-mount lenses being incredibly cheap versus buying new mirrorless gear and lenses.
M43 systems are also excellent for bird watching given the 2x crop factor, and diminutive size of lenses verses larger sensors. Older M43 camera bodies are incredibly cheap versus new equipment. M43 combined with modern LLM-based denoisers means that even low-light photos with higher ISO really can end up looking incredibly good.
No need to go far or spend a lot of money.
arethuza · 2026-10-26 12:18:33 UTC
I have a Nikon P1000 while it doesn't have the best image quality does make up for it in having a truly remarkable zoom: 24-3000mm. Just the thing for taking pictures of birds and then working out what they actually are at my leisure.
eichin · 2026-10-27 00:24:09 UTC
Same - it gets the ludicrous reach by having a small sensor (and OK but not miraculous lenses) but it turns out that most birdwatching is done in bright sunlight, which makes up for the optical limitations. (I also find it's easier to look for birds naked-eye first - even with mild corrective lenses, vastly more field of view and more effective motion-detecting reflexes - rather than trying to scan with the tiny field of view of the camera. But part of that was noticing the feeling of "levelling up" when I first started bird watching specifically :-)
macintux · 2026-10-26 22:42:09 UTC
Goodwill’s online auction site, shopgoodwill.com, has opened my eyes to how much people appreciate Nikon gear. Nikon pro film cameras sell for stupid amounts of money.
cloudbonsai · 2026-10-26 10:48:01 UTC
For what it’s worth, this article cites a longitudinal study done by German researchers.
They basically installed a bunch of bird feeders outside nursing homes to see if watching birds improves the health of the elderly people. The researchers concluded that it did:
Nursing home staff were the first to see the difference the birds made. "For weeks, they haven't seen a smile on [a resident's] face, and then they see the smile," Kals says.
Some of the memory and concentration improvements are evident after just three to four weeks, Kals says.
It seems that they used the following bird feeder in their study:
That sounds a bit like "enrichment" for pets. We all go a little nutso without it.
My apartment has a great view on nature. I see the sunrises and the sunsets, swallows racing across the evening sky, a chestnut's whole cycle, and all that lives in my balcony garden.
I cannot overstate how much it does for my happiness. I love the morning routine of caring for my garden. I love to watch things grow and seasons change.
I think our caveman brains need this sort of thing.
I'd really say the opposite - birdwatching cuts across socioeconomic classes surprisingly well in the UK. At least the subarea of bitding which is focused on rare birds.
robotmay · 2026-10-26 18:34:24 UTC
Yeah some people focus too much on the people rocking about with Swarovski spotting scopes. I’ve met teenagers down my local reserve who were spending their school lunch break watching the birds. Bird watching is essentially free, providing that we don’t manage to destroy what little is left of our wildlife in this country and limit it only to reserves. Serviceable binoculars can be had on the cheap too. It’s a very accessible hobby.
Cthulhu_ · 2026-10-26 13:14:07 UTC
I'd say a lot of activities like this can be done for cheap or free. Taking an elderly person to the park is free, it just costs time. Binoculars are ubiquitous, and bird books are a dime a dozen in your local charity shop.
The critical thing is that these people need a hand to get out of the house or do any kind of activity. And I think that's partially behind a lot of ailments that affect the elderly, they don't go out, don't get physically, mentally or sensorily stimulated enough so they atrophy in all those areas. On top of age related conditions like senility, parkinsons, altzheimer's, etc of course.
HelloMcFly · 2026-10-26 13:20:48 UTC
Birdwatching is truly one of the cheapest possible hobbies you can have. Yes, you can make it expensive if you're committed to photographing them and traveling to remote locations to find "life list" birds, but that's not the vast majority of hobbyists.
Myrmornis · 2026-10-26 15:10:59 UTC
Pretty much agree. Binoculars are essential though, unless you really just want to watch geese and herons and things. And for binoculars you do want to spend a few hundred dollars at least if you can. It really transforms things when you can start watching/identifying the small birds.
derwiki · 2026-10-26 15:18:33 UTC
IIRC birding is like a 130bn/year industry in the US
judge2020 · 2026-10-26 13:33:25 UTC
Not sure, but this is definitely a thing - the "a single glass of red wine a day is good for you" claim is pretty likely more about how people who can afford daily wine are probably wealthier people with better access to healthcare, not that any amount of daily ethanol intake has a therapeutic effect. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
nunez · 2026-10-26 22:16:06 UTC
It is easy to spend serious coin on camping/backcountry, but you don't really need to buy anything to watch birds. Just your eyes and Merlin if you're cool with using your phone or your region's bird guide if you're not. If you want to make a thing of it, then, yeah, get nice binoculars with good lenses.
Something I learned from I-forget-where: if you hear an interesting bird call, close your eyes, look up and point your nose to the source of the sound. Open your eyes, and, surprise, it's probably a Northern Cardinal, Mockingbird or some kind of thrush! lol
grendelt · 2026-10-26 10:46:36 UTC
I'm into ham radio which, as a hobby, skews to an older demographic. Does just having a stimulating hobby actually slow decline?
Most of the fun of ham radio is learning - it never stops, there's always something else to discover. I'd guess that it's the learning, searching, and connections you make that provide the benefits. Unless being in nature is a requirement, but then you have plenty of retirees that go RVing - do they experience the same benefits? I doubt that's as intellectually stimulating as birding or radio. Maybe.
rustyhancock · 2026-10-26 10:48:49 UTC
Yes of course, anything the requires skills you don't otherwise use. In particular continuous learning is very helpful.
The challenge however is, is it that those who engage in such hobbies have decline slowed. Or are they able to engage in those hobbies due to not declining.
It's not possible to answer clearly without some randomisation and control which is basically impossible.
Still, it's reasonable inference that hobbies and work maintain cognitive capabilities.
saimiam · 2026-10-26 10:58:24 UTC
Maybe by comparing the comparative cognitive of twins, one of whom has a hobby and the other doesn’t?
rustyhancock · 2026-10-26 11:39:23 UTC
It'll definitely be a nice data point.
It seems also just enough to say supporting people to have a hobby if they're at risk of dementia and don't have one is important to meeting their social and health needs.
I might be being too cynical.
I wonder if there is some funding arguments, I.e. if it's for their health and insurer may fund it.
If it's for their social/cultural and general wellbeing it might be out of their remit somewhat.
bmacho · 2026-10-26 12:24:13 UTC
> > The challenge however is, is it that those who engage in such hobbies have decline slowed. Or are they able to engage in those hobbies due to not declining.
> Maybe by comparing the comparative cognitive of twins, one of whom has a hobby and the other doesn’t?
I don't see how that would help in this case?
7952 · 2026-10-26 12:55:25 UTC
I think some hobbies tap into innate abilities more than others. And those tend to show more perceptible and immediate progress and so are more likely to become a regular habit. As a human you already have a facility for recognising things in nature, it is how humans can find food and detect threats. Where as other abilities (like playing a violin) are far less innate.
Cthulhu_ · 2026-10-26 13:25:12 UTC
I think going out into nature adds more physical factors (ham radio and video games are both physically pretty passive hobbies) and more sensory input, which gut feeling says are overall better.
But generally speaking, hobbies are good. That said, I wonder why video games don't seem to be more popular as post-retirement hobbies.
geoffeg · 2026-10-26 14:06:52 UTC
Ham radio does have a lot of outdoor activities. Parks on the Air, Summits on the Air, and to some extent, field day. Some people just operate from their car, others do full day hikes to the spot they setup at.
_whiteCaps_ · 2026-10-26 19:33:50 UTC
I do a 5 day trip in the alpine for SOTA every year. Getting to 6+ point summits in BC is tough to do.
mkli555 · 2026-10-26 14:30:39 UTC
You can also enjoy ham radio outdoors through SOTA (Summits On The Air). Going on a long hike while carrying 10 kg of radio equipment, setting up your station at the summit, and making contacts with other operators is a physically demanding but incredibly rewarding activity.
iosjunkie · 2026-10-26 15:52:46 UTC
> I wonder why video games don't seem to be more popular as post-retirement hobbies.
I think it's a generational thing. Video games were fully entrenched as part of culture starting late gen x/early millennial. I expect to see elder gaming being a thing in the years to come.
jamiek88 · 2026-10-27 00:44:25 UTC
We’re nearly there a lot of my gaming crew are older then me, some now 60 with no signs of ever stopping playing. Will be interesting if that makes a difference when we are 75+
macintux · 2026-10-26 22:46:37 UTC
Video games that would involve that level of sensory engagement also generally require a level of hand-eye coordination that’s tough to achieve at that age, or at least that’s my completely uneducated guess.
For someone that knows nothing about ham radios can you give me a taste for what you mean by requires continuous learning from a naive perspective? It seems like any other radio technology that has not changed in decades.
piokoch · 2026-10-26 10:49:42 UTC
Key finding is:
"The findings don't prove whether structural brain differences are the cause or effect of birdwatching expertise."
Not a big surprise that this observation proves exactly nothing as there are thousands of other factors they could not control for (and apparently didn't want).
"Her team's findings have prompted German health insurance companies – who, among others, initially funded the research project – to invest in setting up bird feeders and viewing areas in more than 400 nursing homes across Bavaria. "
This is kind of hilarious and I would not believe that if it weren't Germany, a country that intentionally destroyed its nuclear plants capabilities in order to burn Russian gas and emit CO2. Obviously in the name of reducing CO2 emission.
IAmBroom · 2026-10-26 13:37:54 UTC
From birdwatching/neural plasticity to environmentalism/anti-Russian sentiments.
Wow.
yunruse · 2026-10-26 11:16:46 UTC
This feels if nothing else quite analogous with default mode network, i.e. brain regions which are task-negative (or task-neutral).
It seems that the literature supports the intuition that to meaningfully relax (i.e. exercise the brain with fewer pressures of time, success or similar, and with a relatively low information bandwidth) is really good for cognitive health. And it's very good to destress, which we can all benefit from!
So even if there are more cars than birds outside my own window... I'll make sure to spend a few more moments each day by it :)
ourmandave · 2026-10-26 11:17:44 UTC
Does it count if I have a bird feeder with a movement detection camera that saves to the cloud 100's of terrible blurry images I look at once a never?
derwiki · 2026-10-26 15:45:01 UTC
Because it’s always a house finch?
FinnLobsien · 2026-10-26 11:19:39 UTC
I believe that we'll see a lot of "x is good for your brain" news (with X just being any activity that doesn't involve a screen), now that attention spans are so short and everyone feels like their brain isn't the same anymore.
The same way we got gyms when people realized physical inactivity is super unhealthy.
arethuza · 2026-10-26 11:44:43 UTC
I suspect we'll find out that "programming is good for your brain" as well...
NB I'm 61 and recently started developing something almost entirely for the mental workout if provides
Edit: I also wanted to use HTMX so I could become CEO one day
FinnLobsien · 2026-10-26 11:52:23 UTC
That's great! I think anything that's not passively consuming a screen will be known as "good for your brain", the same way that regular food has become known as "health food".
Eschewing eating ultraprocessed, factory-made food is now seen as a deliberate health choice, even though it used to be the default. I think the same is happening with the brain.
Reading a book is now seen as some erudite choice. Having a hobby like knitting, birdwatching, etc. will be some kind of "good for your brain" activity. Things that used to be the only option are now "healthy choices".
cowlevel · 2026-10-26 14:14:10 UTC
I think you can just become CEO of HTMX, don't have to actually use it
arethuza · 2026-10-26 14:37:11 UTC
Well, I'm old fashioned about these things...
lelandfe · 2026-10-26 11:46:54 UTC
Engaging with Torment Nexus Less Found to Lower Stress, Increase Life Expectancy
malfist · 2026-10-26 12:26:01 UTC
What if we took the idea of two minutes of hate session from the dystopian 1984 and made it available all the time. Everyone could carry in their pocket their own personal two minutes of hate that they can have any time they want as often as they want. Orwell never dreamed so high
Gravityloss · 2026-10-26 12:34:44 UTC
The Hate Amplifier
Cthulhu_ · 2026-10-26 13:11:10 UTC
Twitter? Everyone gets a soapbox to rant on.
void-sky · 2026-10-26 12:55:15 UTC
We all have that already, it's called smartphone sadly.
It works with whatever political direction you lean on, which stance you have on two or more genders, which religion you love or hate, which gaming platform you prefer, how old you are and many more "divide and conquer"-topics.
It'll be difficult to replace because it's so effective already...
kurthr · 2026-10-26 13:24:19 UTC
What percentage of people are neither of the simple common XY nor XX chromosomes?
It's about as many people as there are with red hair. If you don't include chimerics it's about 0.25-1.7%, if you do include twin chimerics it's 8%, not including mothers micro-chimerism.
Probably shouldn't be having those Kenyans (Kalenjin) competing in marathons either. Completely unfair advantage.
All models are wrong, some are useful.
busssard · 2026-10-26 13:42:59 UTC
what?
bethekidyouwant · 2026-10-26 13:50:33 UTC
At first, I thought this was culture war bait and then I read the Wikipedia article and it is.
cowlevel · 2026-10-26 14:11:20 UTC
It is culture war bait
triceratops · 2026-10-26 13:55:31 UTC
> We all have that already, it's called smartphone sadly.
That's what the person you responded to was saying.
pohl · 2026-10-26 14:01:26 UTC
Might want to take up bird watching: an early indicator of cognitive decline is the loss of an ability to pick up on subtext.
winrid · 2026-10-26 12:40:46 UTC
These Men Married Their Torment Nexus, See How
Lambdanaut · 2026-10-26 13:59:10 UTC
3 wild and wacky facts your doctor doesn't want you to know about your torment nexus
tapland · 2026-10-26 13:56:33 UTC
Stopping and looking at some birds and what they're doing is really relaxing. Be it pigeons, seaguls looking for fries or if lucky a crow or rook.
The corvids looking back wondering what you're doing and they'll communicate back too.
I think becoming a person who would stop and do that, or go birdwatch in general, is probably the important part.
jijijijij · 2026-10-26 17:16:16 UTC
Mean sure, but doing just that misses the learning and specific attention part. Going from "bird" to species, learning about morphological, vocal differences is going beyond "being a little more active and interested in your surroundings". It's really engaging every sensory and cognitive system in concert.
That said, collecting plants or beetles is probably equally beneficial. Geocaching comes to mind too.
Although, I wonder if looking up may contribute, given old people tend deform and bend forward with age. Could affect blood or lymphatic circulation.
snarf21 · 2026-10-26 13:13:11 UTC
I think it is slightly different than that. I think it is more about active brain activity versus passive. Learning how to play Riichi Mahjong (e.g.) would likely show a similar effect. A lot of people push brain puzzles as a tool against dementia, etc. but it is only helpful when learning a new puzzle type. Once you over learn it, our innate pattern matching takes over and you start playing on auto-pilot, it stops "rewiring" your brain. Just sitting on the couch binging streaming or swiping through shorts is likely to atrophy your brain.
Obviously being out in nature has other mental health benefits. The key thing is to keep learning and stay curious. Drive to some new nearby town on a weekend and learn about its history. Learn a new hobby like full f-stop photography or learn how to bake or cook (learn all four base sauces). Take up board games and explore all the different kinds of experiences they provide today.
throwaway2037 · 2026-10-26 13:19:18 UTC
> now that attention spans are so short
Oh please, this is Internet nonsense. Google tells me:
> Psychologists and neuroscientists find no structural decline in the human brain's ability to focus. Sustained attention limits remain largely unchanged.
WelkinFolk · 2026-10-26 13:37:36 UTC
I and pretty much everyone I know has repeatedly mentioned how difficult of a time they're having reading books, code (software eng. friends), or even watching the first half of a movie without feeling the need to open their phones and scrolling Instagram.
Comments
Is a long leap from this article's title. Paper:
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/46/12/e1307252026
Can we be sure that happened because of the bird watching, or did they reach expert level because their brain is wired differently?
But I created a set of amazing binoculars with automatic AI age detection via radar for the small friendly price of 39.49$. Looking for a bird watcher? Get the SilentBirdWatchDectector 3000 and slow your cognitive decline at double the rate.
Don't watch the birds, watch the bird watchers instead. They may do something interesting.
(I'll see myself out...)
I don’t consider myself a birder but I’ve got into nature photography in recent years and it’s such a joy to get out for sunrise or sunset and to come home with a special shot.
A lot of, "birdwatchers" I see travelling to remote parts of Scotland and other places in the UK are generally wealthy retirees, with nice kit (Rab clothing, telephoto lenses, VW campervans).
Cognitive decline is shown to impact disproportionately on less wealthy people. So is there a trend with economic wealth and outdoor hobbies like birdwatching? I'd hazard a yes.
On a side note, the Merlin bird ID app from Cornell University is great.
Do you know how it compares to iNaturalist? I'm not a birdwatcher, but I have iNat on my phone and sometimes use it to identify birds, and it seems to do a great job.
Perhaps we need to provide opportunities for less well off people to access nature? It might have a positive cost-benefit. And design care homes around gardens? 'forest bathing' is apparently often recommended in Japan based on studies of blood pressure and other physical indicators.
Munlochy: if you ever saw a geezer wearing an ex-army parka, builders safety boots with Opticron bins it might have been me. I don't get up there often enough to warrant the pricey stuff.
Birdwatching can still be enjoyed in most places without needing to travel far. Birds are less active in bad weather so you don’t need expensive outdoor gear, and in many places there will be freely accessible nature reserves with hides in which one can sit in shelter to watch birds.
The highest quality glass is going to get pretty expensive (camera lenses can get to the region of $20k; binoculars $4k or so) but there are also much cheaper options and often these can be quite reasonable: you don’t need to take photos of birds; a superzoom point-and-shoot can work great; more expensive binoculars make a bigger difference in low light and if you’re young (older people’s pupils won’t dilate as much so bigger objectives at a lower magnification won’t be a huge help).
I feel like mostly you’re observing that rich people spend lots of money on their hobbies and not that opening your eyes to look at birds is some expensive exclusionary activity.
M43 systems are also excellent for bird watching given the 2x crop factor, and diminutive size of lenses verses larger sensors. Older M43 camera bodies are incredibly cheap versus new equipment. M43 combined with modern LLM-based denoisers means that even low-light photos with higher ISO really can end up looking incredibly good.
No need to go far or spend a lot of money.
They basically installed a bunch of bird feeders outside nursing homes to see if watching birds improves the health of the elderly people. The researchers concluded that it did:
It seems that they used the following bird feeder in their study:https://www.lbv.de/umweltbildung/fuer-seniorenheime/ausstatt...
My apartment has a great view on nature. I see the sunrises and the sunsets, swallows racing across the evening sky, a chestnut's whole cycle, and all that lives in my balcony garden.
I cannot overstate how much it does for my happiness. I love the morning routine of caring for my garden. I love to watch things grow and seasons change.
I think our caveman brains need this sort of thing.
The critical thing is that these people need a hand to get out of the house or do any kind of activity. And I think that's partially behind a lot of ailments that affect the elderly, they don't go out, don't get physically, mentally or sensorily stimulated enough so they atrophy in all those areas. On top of age related conditions like senility, parkinsons, altzheimer's, etc of course.
Something I learned from I-forget-where: if you hear an interesting bird call, close your eyes, look up and point your nose to the source of the sound. Open your eyes, and, surprise, it's probably a Northern Cardinal, Mockingbird or some kind of thrush! lol
The challenge however is, is it that those who engage in such hobbies have decline slowed. Or are they able to engage in those hobbies due to not declining.
It's not possible to answer clearly without some randomisation and control which is basically impossible.
Still, it's reasonable inference that hobbies and work maintain cognitive capabilities.
It seems also just enough to say supporting people to have a hobby if they're at risk of dementia and don't have one is important to meeting their social and health needs.
I might be being too cynical. I wonder if there is some funding arguments, I.e. if it's for their health and insurer may fund it.
If it's for their social/cultural and general wellbeing it might be out of their remit somewhat.
> Maybe by comparing the comparative cognitive of twins, one of whom has a hobby and the other doesn’t?
I don't see how that would help in this case?
But generally speaking, hobbies are good. That said, I wonder why video games don't seem to be more popular as post-retirement hobbies.
I think it's a generational thing. Video games were fully entrenched as part of culture starting late gen x/early millennial. I expect to see elder gaming being a thing in the years to come.
Also, speaking as someone approaching retirement age, sensory overload isn’t particularly enjoyable.
"The findings don't prove whether structural brain differences are the cause or effect of birdwatching expertise."
Not a big surprise that this observation proves exactly nothing as there are thousands of other factors they could not control for (and apparently didn't want).
"Her team's findings have prompted German health insurance companies – who, among others, initially funded the research project – to invest in setting up bird feeders and viewing areas in more than 400 nursing homes across Bavaria. "
This is kind of hilarious and I would not believe that if it weren't Germany, a country that intentionally destroyed its nuclear plants capabilities in order to burn Russian gas and emit CO2. Obviously in the name of reducing CO2 emission.
Wow.
It seems that the literature supports the intuition that to meaningfully relax (i.e. exercise the brain with fewer pressures of time, success or similar, and with a relatively low information bandwidth) is really good for cognitive health. And it's very good to destress, which we can all benefit from!
So even if there are more cars than birds outside my own window... I'll make sure to spend a few more moments each day by it :)
The same way we got gyms when people realized physical inactivity is super unhealthy.
NB I'm 61 and recently started developing something almost entirely for the mental workout if provides
Edit: I also wanted to use HTMX so I could become CEO one day
Eschewing eating ultraprocessed, factory-made food is now seen as a deliberate health choice, even though it used to be the default. I think the same is happening with the brain.
Reading a book is now seen as some erudite choice. Having a hobby like knitting, birdwatching, etc. will be some kind of "good for your brain" activity. Things that used to be the only option are now "healthy choices".
It works with whatever political direction you lean on, which stance you have on two or more genders, which religion you love or hate, which gaming platform you prefer, how old you are and many more "divide and conquer"-topics.
It'll be difficult to replace because it's so effective already...
Probably shouldn't be having those Kenyans (Kalenjin) competing in marathons either. Completely unfair advantage.
All models are wrong, some are useful.
That's what the person you responded to was saying.
The corvids looking back wondering what you're doing and they'll communicate back too.
I think becoming a person who would stop and do that, or go birdwatch in general, is probably the important part.
That said, collecting plants or beetles is probably equally beneficial. Geocaching comes to mind too.
Although, I wonder if looking up may contribute, given old people tend deform and bend forward with age. Could affect blood or lymphatic circulation.
Obviously being out in nature has other mental health benefits. The key thing is to keep learning and stay curious. Drive to some new nearby town on a weekend and learn about its history. Learn a new hobby like full f-stop photography or learn how to bake or cook (learn all four base sauces). Take up board games and explore all the different kinds of experiences they provide today.