BIRD THERAPY

Posted: 01.09.26 in Articles category

 

 

British birdwatcher Joe Harkness has written an engaging and at times moving account of the way the natural world, particularly birdwatching improved his mental health and well-being.  He does more than generalise from his own experience as he engages with the considerable data now available on the benefits of spending time attending to the natural world and conducts his own survey of fellow birdwatchers.

I appreciate the way he engages honestly with the “dark side” of birdwatching; he describes times when he loses the benefits of being out in the natural world. This arises from either his own attitude or the behaviour of others around him. He finds “listing” where he is compiling records of his sightings and seeks out rare or hard to find species can generate frustration and disrupt his appreciation of birds and the natural environment. Also, the behaviour of his fellow birdwatchers (especially when trying to see a rare species) was at times unpleasant, unsettling and even threatening! He describes one of the low points:

"As we neared the last reported site of the Iberian visitor (a Citril Finch – a particularly rare visitor to mainland Britain) the amount of people grew drastically. Usually large groups of people bother me little - if at all – but the frenetic edginess of this amassed crowd sent my anxiety into haywire. The next forty minutes or so was a maelstrom of moving limbs that were pointing and gesturing. I felt cramped and pressurised.... I was even unceremoniously lifted off my feet, by a brute of a birdwatcher, who wanted me to finish my viewing so he could see for himself.”

Thankfully this is a brief sad interlude in what is an overwhelmingly positive pursuit. Joe emphasises the benefits of a relaxed, appreciative viewing of whatever may present itself to the observer in a given moment. He stresses the benefit of a detailed appreciation of whatever we are viewing. He has an excellent description of the subtle beauty of the dunnock that is only discovered by close attention to a bird that is sometimes dismissed as a boring “little brown job”. He has a fluent descriptive style of writing and this delightful description of a Brambling made me smile, “Fifteen yellowhammers were perched in a bare tree with a single Neopolitan-ice-cream-coloured Brambling amongst them”.This book will teach you a great deal about birds and birdsong and how to approach this therapeutic hobby in the best possible way that works for you. Each chapter has a concluding section of helpful questions to aid us in reflection on our own experience. This excellent book adds lots of common-sense support to the directive from Jesus to “Consider the bird of the air” (Matthew 6 v26).

 

Dale Hanson