Staying Home, Watching Birds Backyard Birding Boom by Michael Valliant
time”; Audubon Magazine said, “Birdwatching is a bright spot in a pandemic-stricken economy”; and an AARP headline read, “The pandemic has made birding cool.” For Leslie Heath, backyard birding has been more than cool. With her just-turned-two-year-old son Kellan at home with her, with being a mom, working, and her husband, Peter, at work during the days ~ birding has been solace. “Birding literally keeps me sane on
Watching birds in your backyard is a simple pleasure. Anyone can do it. And it can be endlessly fascinating. For some people, it’s just a matter of having time at home. Enter COVID-19 and a response to the pandemic that calls on us to do just that. And backyard birding has taken off, or maybe landed is a better word, in a big way. The New York Times has written that “backyard birding has become the perfect pandemic pas-
Photo by Leslie Heath
Carolina wren 19
