How Movies and TV Made Birdwatchers Uncool—and Cool Again

I began birding in 2005 after pulling a used subject information off a bookstore shelf. I had by no means been birding, didn’t know any birders, and solely knew one birding truth: It was not cool.

However the place did I get that concept? With out understanding any birders personally, I made a decision that my aversion will need to have come from the media—from cultural opinions I had picked up by osmosis. I questioned: Was it true that the media portrayed birding as dorky? Was it all the time that means?

To analyze, I’ve searched again so far as I can for examples of birders in films and on TV, charting the ways in which birding has been represented over time. It’s modified so much, I’ve discovered, throughout a number of distinct eras, as illustrated by some key moments beneath. Let’s dive in.

1900—1945: The Hero Years

In accordance with bird researcher Robert Francis, birds had been a preferred topic through the silent movie period. They had been accessible, straightforward to movie, and on the heart of a wave of conservation to cease poaching (coinciding with the founding of the National Association of Audubon Societies). The consequence was dozens of movies that includes birds and hero conservationists. Some had been nearer to nature documentaries, whereas others had been dramas produced in partnership with early film studios. In The Spirit of Audubon, for instance, the literal ghost of John James Audubon shames a boy for robbing eggs from birds’ nests and takes him and his sister on a whirlwind tour of American birdlife. No footage stays, sadly.

Conservation themes continued all through of the silent period and into the talkies. Within the 1944 British comedy The Tawny Pipit, an injured fighter pilot is launched from the hospital and, utilizing a gifted subject information, discovers a pair of uncommon Tawny Pipits nesting in a subject in England. The pilot and his girlfriend (who was his nurse) enlist the native townspeople to guard the nest from a stream of threats, together with military trainees, a plow, egg thieves, and…

Birders. Although that is an early illustration of them, all of the clichés are there: They’re outdated, bumbling, and overdressed in tweed and khaki. The townspeople are at first cautious of their presence (they’re mistaken for extra “egg-stealers”), however the birders are conscious of how particular the pipits are and work for his or her safety, organising a blind and taking turns viewing (skip to 33:44 within the video above). It’s, total, a reasonably respectful illustration in a film wholly impressed by conservation. The stage was set for our subsequent period.
 

1946—1966: The Golden Years

The Nineteen Fifties had been time for birdwatchers in america, in actual life and on the massive display. Individuals within the Nineteen Fifties loved relative peace and prosperity and had extra free time to pursue hobbies. Miles of latest highways aided exploration, high-quality optics developed throughout WWII flooded the market, and new and higher subject guides turned extensively obtainable. This all mixed to spur recent curiosity in birding, and its newfound reputation was mirrored on display.

Along with there being much more birders within the ’50s, there have been additionally much more folks watching TV. To fulfill the demand, studios launched a slew of latest applications—cartoons and sitcoms and different exhibits that competed for the general public’s consideration—and wanted to continually give you concepts for episodes.

Birding ceaselessly confirmed up in cartoons, together with Woody Woodpecker’s “Watch the Birdie” from 1958 (Woody is an actual jerk for no motive!) and Rocky and Bullwinkle’s “The Treasure of Monte Zoom” (1962). Even Popeye picked up binoculars on the behest of Oliv Oyl, saying “Okay, boid, I’m watchin’ ya” in 1960’s “Bird Watcher Popeye.”

Birding appeared in sitcoms, as properly. Within the 1960 episode of Dennis the Menace known as “Dennis’ Tree House,” Dennis’ neighbor Mr. Wilson discovers a uncommon (and completely pretend) Canadian Crested Warbler in his yard. He then invitations native birdwatching bigwigs to substantiate the sighting and hopefully embody him on their native birding Honor Scroll. It’s a six-decade-old episode of TV that—if you happen to swapped “Honor Scroll” with “American Birding Affiliation Podcast’s Rare Bird Focus” —would look nearly equivalent right this moment.

What made the Golden Years period so particular was that birding was not the butt of the joke. It wasn’t inherently odd or nerdy to be a birdwatcher throughout this time, even in comedy applications. However issues took a tough flip within the Nineteen Sixties, with one character singlehandedly souring the repute of birding for many years to come back.

It wasn’t Burt Lancaster in 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz, who performed a assassin in jail who finds salvation in turning into an ornithologist. And it wasn’t The Birds, the traditional Alfred Hitchcock thriller from 1963 the place a city of individuals is actually murdered by gulls, crows, and different birds.

No, the character that ruined birding, that locked in a repute of birders as khaki-clad dorks that took many years to unwind, was… Miss Jane Hathaway.
 

1966: The Hathaway Line

The debut of Miss Jane Hathaway’s birding obsession in a 1966 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies titled “The Hen-Watchers” was a turning level for birders—an occasion I name The Hathaway Line.

In his ebook Of a Feather, in a chapter known as “Demise to Miss Hathaway,” Scott Weidensaul units the stage: “Miss Jane Hathaway – the tall spinster performed by Nancy Culp, who’d pop up in with a pith helmet and a pair of binoculars, so starchy, so prim, so nerdy… None of which mattered, besides that she was a bird-watcher.” Weidensaul writes about encountering Miss Hathaway for the primary time as a child, seeing her and her “dweeby little buddies, prancing round of their tweeds and smart footwear, with binoculars round their skinny necks and spectacles perched on their ridiculous faces.” They had been ridiculous characters, he realized, and so perhaps birdwatching was ridiculous, too.

It’s laborious to overstate the influence of this seemingly minor character. The Beverly Hillbillies was probably the most well-liked TV exhibits of the Nineteen Sixties, with every episode reaching tens of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Jane Hathaway appeared in 246 episodes throughout 9 seasons. She wasn’t all the time birdwatching, however just a few instances was sufficient to affiliate her with birding ceaselessly and sink the interest’s repute. Consequently, the subsequent few many years had been fairly bleak.
 

1967—2011: The Bleak Years

Right here’s what’s ironic concerning the Bleak Years: Birding was rising as a subculture and interest within the Nineteen Seventies. The American Birdwatcher’s Affiliation (now the American Birding Affiliation) was based in 1969, and hip, younger birders like Kenn Kaufman had been hitchhiking their means across the nation in quest of lifers and journey. Birding was type of cool—it simply wasn’t proven that means on TV. 

The dismissive mainstream angle is summed up fairly clearly within the intro to this 1979 episode of “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report” about an Audubon Christmas Bird Count (emphasis mine): “Within the sharp, early morning sunshine of a Lengthy Island winter, 5 males preserve an annual appointment with nature. Why are they up at daybreak on this frozen panorama? They’re counting birds—and it’s not almost as foolish because it sounds.” C’mon man!

Birding hardly ever appeared in mass media within the many years after Miss Hathaway, and when it did it was not portrayed kindly. It was the peak of un-coolness when Katherine Hepburn was shrieking about loons in On Golden Pond (1981). Birding was related to creepiness in Beetlejuice (1988), mental instability in Serial Mother (1994), and sexual deviance in 2001’s Quick Couch, a film so weird that I feel all English-language variations have been scrubbed from the web (although please word Crispin Glover’s insane tweed-jacket-and-red-bow-tie birding outfit).

Throughout the Bleak Years birding was additionally a preferred narrative instrument in horror movies. Horror administrators want an excuse to get folks into distant areas to be killed off, in any case, and birders is usually a excellent match. The plot of 1988’s Zombie 5: Killing Birds entails a bunch of youngsters getting murdered within the swamps of Louisiana whereas trying to find the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. In 1981’s Don’t Go Into the Woods, a lone birder (additionally in a ridiculous tweed jacket and crimson bow tie, regardless of all his mountain climbing buddies carrying regular garments) is an early casualty.

Birding additionally often exhibits up in police procedurals. Birders are individuals who could also be in distant locations and come upon a criminal offense scene or clue. Or perhaps they see a vital occasion via their binoculars.

Within the 1985 Homicide, She Wrote episode “A Lady in the Lake,” Jessica Fletcher runs right into a meek, nerdy birdwatcher at a lakeside lodge. (Spoiler alert: the birder is the assassin!) Birders discover physique elements in chook nests in a 2003 episode of CSI and a 2008 episode of Bones. Birders {photograph} crimes in episodes of each Law and Order: SVU and NCIS, and Criminal Minds includes a plotline the place a felony leaves lifeless Nelson’s Sparrows, of all issues, at his crime scenes. I’m positive there are extra.
 

2011—current: The Renaissance

Cracks had been starting to indicate in birding’s nerdy repute within the early and mid-2000s. The 2001 Canadian movie Rare Birds follows a down-on-his-luck restaurant proprietor who fakes the sighting of a uncommon chook—the utterly made up Tasker’s Sulphureous Duck—to drum up enterprise. The restaurant proprietor calls his pretend sighting right into a bird-themed radio present (!) hosted by a birder carrying, in fact, a tweed jacket and crimson bow tie. (Why all the time a crimson bow tie!?) A 2005 Will and Grace episode options Luke Perry as a hunky homosexual birder trying, extremely however not fully unbelievably, at a Golden-cheeked Warbler in a wintry Central Park.

Nevertheless it was 2011’s The Big Year that marked the turning level in how birding is handled within the wider tradition. It was a pleasant film, however extra importantly it offered the revolutionary concept that birding was one thing that ordinary folks participated in, carrying regular garments (not a single bow tie!) and speaking usually. The flood gates had been open.

In 2013, A Birder’s Guide to Everything confirmed that cool folks like Sir Ben Kingsley and a bunch of regular youngsters might be birders, and The Birder aka the Bird Men (2013) confirmed that the identical factor might occur in Canada. Mark Ruffalo used the Merlin App on HBO’s Task final 12 months, and the primary character in Netflix’s The Residence (2025) was a birdwatching detective fixing a homicide on the White Home. Gen Z is getting in on the act, too, with Listers turning into a sensation on YouTube final 12 months.

When the Hallmark Channel takes discover, you actually know the stigma is gone. The 2020 rom-com Love & Glamping proved that being a birder received’t stop an uptight metropolis lady from falling in love with you, and 2025’s Adventures in Love & Birding, based on a novel, confirmed that conventionally enticing women and men can discover love whereas birding, particularly in the event that they’re every in a position to entice miniature male Assorted Thrushes to perch and kiss on their hands.

After Hallmark Channel films and Gen Z, what’s left for birding to overcome? I imply, we have even conquered the ultimate frontier: house. Within the 2026 episode of Starfleet Academy “Rubincon,” two characters bond over their love of birdwatching. Are there birds in house? Who is aware of, however birding has come mild years since its early days on the massive display.