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Nature, Society, and Culture
For the Birds: Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze
One in five people in the United States is a birdwatcher, yet the popular understanding of birders reduces them to comical stereotypes, obsessives who only have eyes for their favorite rare species. In real life, however, birders are paying equally close attention to the world around them, observing the devastating effects of climate change and mass extinction, while discovering small pockets of biodiversity in unexpected places.
For the Birds offers readers a glimpse behind the binoculars and reveals birders to be important allies in the larger environmental conservation movement. With a wealth of data from in-depth interviews and over three years of observing birders in the field, environmental sociologist Elizabeth Cherry argues that birders learn to watch wildlife in ways that make an invaluable contribution to contemporary conservation efforts. She investigates how birders develop a “naturalist gaze” that enables them to understand the shared ecosystem that intertwines humans and wild animals, an appreciation that motivates them to participate in citizen science projects and wildlife conservation.
For the Birds offers readers a glimpse behind the binoculars and reveals birders to be important allies in the larger environmental conservation movement. With a wealth of data from in-depth interviews and over three years of observing birders in the field, environmental sociologist Elizabeth Cherry argues that birders learn to watch wildlife in ways that make an invaluable contribution to contemporary conservation efforts. She investigates how birders develop a “naturalist gaze” that enables them to understand the shared ecosystem that intertwines humans and wild animals, an appreciation that motivates them to participate in citizen science projects and wildlife conservation.
- GenresBirdsNonfiction
222 pages, Paperback
Published September 13, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 11, 2026
This book shows what happens to a sample of birders in the US as they engage in the practice of birding. She shows that they develop a “naturalist gaze”, which is perhaps a naturalist version of the new ecological paradigm (a connection she makes in the conclusion) or of the ecological habitus (a connection I’m making). This naturalist gaze is a major reorientation of how people perceive, think about, and act in relation to the natural world. The book is centrally concerned with the naturalist gaze’s action dimension, which chapter 7 focuses on, showing how birders take lifestyle based action and political action such as lobbying because of their care for birds that comes out of the naturalist gaze. The question of how we might get more people into this kind of practice is not explored by the book — the issue of recruitment. However, the book does an excellent job showing how someone is reshaped by having an appreciative relationship with the natural world.
November 29, 2022
For me, Elizabeth Cherry's For the Birds is several things at once.
It is first, and primarily, a book of sociology. Cherry is a sociologist specializing in animal studies at Manhattanville College in upstate New York. She used qualitative methods, such as interviews and observation research on Audubon bird trips, to explore how birders relate to birds and the environment. Cherry and I share an interest in how practices of attention are learned. While the topics we write about are wildly different -- I've written about the role of attention-management in the denial of problems and Cherry's written about it among birders! -- we use similar frameworks and approaches in our work.
Read as a work of sociology, For the Birds is, as most outings of birdwatching are, a joyous trip through wild spaces and urban parks to see birds. Cherry shows how birders learn to see, identify, think, and talk about birds, usually in the accompany of more experienced others. She demonstrates that, over time, many birders -- or at least those involved in the Audubon Society -- develop what she calls a "naturalist gaze" that allows them to perceive and assess the quality of local ecosystems.
But as I'm also a birder, I read For the Birds as a description of the activity. Much of what Cherry documents resonated with my experience as a birder and field trip leader. I nodded along as Cherry describes a trip leader describing birds perched at "o'clocks" on a tree. This is a strategy I learned from long-time birders in Denver (e.g., "the nuthatch is at three o'clock on the bare branch on that large tree" or, better yet, "the Plumbeous Vireo is at 9:37 on the bare branch on the century-old cottonwood along the canal").
As a birder, it also was enriching to understand that my sense of how I became a birder was fairly generalizable. While there may not be one path to becoming a birder, there are certain experiences that many of us go through that enable us to effectively use our binoculars, our cameras, our field guides, each other, and, eventually, our earned knowledge to find, spot or hear, and identify birds.
There was yet one more thing that For the Birds represented to me. As I mentioned, Cherry is based in upstate New York and studied with Audubon Societies in the area. I grew up slightly farther upstate than these groups, near areas where some of the birders who Cherry met would look for birds. I recognized the Black Dirt Region of upstate New York, where downstate birders seek Short-eared Owls. When one birder Cherry spoke to complained of birders trespassing on private property to seek a Gyrfalcon, I had a sense of where this might have been: Blue Chip Farms, not far from where I grew up, where a Gyrfalcon spent much of the winter of 2015. (The timing of the bird seems right for Cherry's research, and a friend-birder [we need a word for that -- "frirder"? "briend?"]) had told me of out-of-town birders and photographers trespassing at the farm to get better photos.)
Sociologists tend to write books that drain the joy from the world. By focusing, specifically, on birders relationship to non-human species, Cherry preserves the joys and passions of birders. Sure, she asks that more birders eat less meat -- surely the one thing most birders could do at an individual level to protect habitats for birds. But she carefully documents the ways that birders care for the birds they see, even above their commitments to their list. And she shows how our "naturalist gaze" inspire us to learn more, appreciate more, and understand more about the delicate relationships among ourselves and the non-human species that surround us.
It is first, and primarily, a book of sociology. Cherry is a sociologist specializing in animal studies at Manhattanville College in upstate New York. She used qualitative methods, such as interviews and observation research on Audubon bird trips, to explore how birders relate to birds and the environment. Cherry and I share an interest in how practices of attention are learned. While the topics we write about are wildly different -- I've written about the role of attention-management in the denial of problems and Cherry's written about it among birders! -- we use similar frameworks and approaches in our work.
Read as a work of sociology, For the Birds is, as most outings of birdwatching are, a joyous trip through wild spaces and urban parks to see birds. Cherry shows how birders learn to see, identify, think, and talk about birds, usually in the accompany of more experienced others. She demonstrates that, over time, many birders -- or at least those involved in the Audubon Society -- develop what she calls a "naturalist gaze" that allows them to perceive and assess the quality of local ecosystems.
But as I'm also a birder, I read For the Birds as a description of the activity. Much of what Cherry documents resonated with my experience as a birder and field trip leader. I nodded along as Cherry describes a trip leader describing birds perched at "o'clocks" on a tree. This is a strategy I learned from long-time birders in Denver (e.g., "the nuthatch is at three o'clock on the bare branch on that large tree" or, better yet, "the Plumbeous Vireo is at 9:37 on the bare branch on the century-old cottonwood along the canal").
As a birder, it also was enriching to understand that my sense of how I became a birder was fairly generalizable. While there may not be one path to becoming a birder, there are certain experiences that many of us go through that enable us to effectively use our binoculars, our cameras, our field guides, each other, and, eventually, our earned knowledge to find, spot or hear, and identify birds.
There was yet one more thing that For the Birds represented to me. As I mentioned, Cherry is based in upstate New York and studied with Audubon Societies in the area. I grew up slightly farther upstate than these groups, near areas where some of the birders who Cherry met would look for birds. I recognized the Black Dirt Region of upstate New York, where downstate birders seek Short-eared Owls. When one birder Cherry spoke to complained of birders trespassing on private property to seek a Gyrfalcon, I had a sense of where this might have been: Blue Chip Farms, not far from where I grew up, where a Gyrfalcon spent much of the winter of 2015. (The timing of the bird seems right for Cherry's research, and a friend-birder [we need a word for that -- "frirder"? "briend?"]) had told me of out-of-town birders and photographers trespassing at the farm to get better photos.)
Sociologists tend to write books that drain the joy from the world. By focusing, specifically, on birders relationship to non-human species, Cherry preserves the joys and passions of birders. Sure, she asks that more birders eat less meat -- surely the one thing most birders could do at an individual level to protect habitats for birds. But she carefully documents the ways that birders care for the birds they see, even above their commitments to their list. And she shows how our "naturalist gaze" inspire us to learn more, appreciate more, and understand more about the delicate relationships among ourselves and the non-human species that surround us.
April 21, 2021
This read more like a school paper than a non-fiction book for me, and a bit repetitive at that. I think it could have been cut down several pages in each chapter, but I understand that's the style of this type of writing. I found this book quite informative, but some of it also seemed like common sense — but perhaps that's my biology degree talking. I'm definitely more interested in birds, and that's the whole point! I did not like her her statement about pit bulls, however. It was unnecessary; she always went nowhere with it. But that's just my own opinion. She was quite objective throughout the rest of the book, even with the meat eating section. I'd definitely recommend, but I've read better non-fiction books.
September 6, 2026
an amazing book!
really well written and made me learn so much about birding culture and more terms and definitions about it.
I annotate a lot and some parts of the book stand out to me like “Humans have changed animals’ habitats for the worse, but animals can change humans’ lives for the better.
Also this book had good notes and articles/other papers that I can base my thesis around!!! (Thank you Elizabeth Cherry)
really well written and made me learn so much about birding culture and more terms and definitions about it.
I annotate a lot and some parts of the book stand out to me like “Humans have changed animals’ habitats for the worse, but animals can change humans’ lives for the better.
Also this book had good notes and articles/other papers that I can base my thesis around!!! (Thank you Elizabeth Cherry)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews