Bird watching

Birdwatching can be a way of imparting knowledge, a leisure activity, or a competitive nature hobby in which participants use binoculars or spotting scopes to identify birds in the wild. Many competitive formats such as “Big Day”/”Bird Race” and standardized monitoring programs have been established; observations are made on foot, by boat, or from a fixed observation point.
The history of birdwatching goes back thousands of years: people have always used migration routes, breeding grounds, and calls to interpret seasons and landscapes. Modern birdwatching developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the availability of optical devices and field guides, especially in the United Kingdom and North America, and subsequently spread worldwide.
The word “birdwatching” is a compound word in German, combining “bird” and “observation.” In English, “birdwatching” (also “birding”) refers to the attentive observation and identification of species; “watch” refers to vigilant observation, “bird” to the object of observation.