‘A break from scrolling’: how Gen Z fell in love with birding

Summary

Science Weekly – Episode Summary

Podcast: Science Weekly (The Guardian)
Episode Title: ‘A break from scrolling’: how Gen Z fell in love with birding
Date: July 7, 2026
Host: Madeline Findlay
Featured Guests: Robert MacFarlane (nature writer), Jess Painter (RSPB Youth Council), Alma, Trixie, Caitlin (young birders/architecture students)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the resurgence of birdwatching, especially among Gen Z, against the backdrop of dramatic declines in bird populations across the UK and Europe. Host Madeline Findlay discusses ecological loss and shifting baseline syndrome, technology’s role in birding’s recent popularity, the joy and community of birding, and how nature engagement can help foster environmental action and mental wellbeing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Decline of Birds and Shifting Baseline Syndrome

[01:20–07:19]

• The episode opens with a recording of the dawn chorus, illustrating how bird populations and birdsong volume have sharply diminished since the 1970s.
• Birds like turtle doves, nightingales, and cuckoos have suffered severe declines.
• The psychological phenomenon "shifting baseline syndrome" means each generation normalizes a degraded environment because they lack reference to past abundance.

Quotes:

• Robert MacFarlane:

  "Shifting baseline syndrome is this enormously powerful and I think very pernicious psychological mechanism whereby each new generation measures loss from the degraded baseline that it grew up into." (04:12)

• Madeline Findlay:

  "Today, a flock a mile long seems preposterous, but that’s nothing. Take the now extinct passenger pigeon... there were so many of them in North America, they would darken the skies overhead for days as they migrated." (06:00)

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2. Literature, Imagination, and Loss

[05:12–07:19]

• MacFarlane links the sense of loss to cultural memory, referencing 19th-century naturalists and the historic abundance of birds.
• He stresses the role of literature and imagination in rekindling awareness and activism, arguing that we are "wired into the wild world," not isolated from it.

Quotes:

• Robert MacFarlane:

  "When I'm in a woodland, spring woodland, suddenly I feel like I've got 20 eyes which are noticing the sparrowhawk above... I feel expanded. I feel as though I’m part of a web that is far greater than me and far more complex than I can know." (06:35)

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3. Nature Literacy and Everyday Connection

[07:26–08:16]

• The decline in “nature literacy” (the ability to name, recognize, and value local species) is seen as a threat, while "greening the future" starts with playful, attentive engagement with nature.

Quotes:

• Robert MacFarlane:

  "It’s not elite knowledge. You don’t need the scientific names. You can make your own names up for these birds, but I think learning to hear them... play, write, look, observe, listen." (07:26)

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4. Tech and the New Birding Wave

[08:16–09:26]

• Gen Z are embracing birding, finding it "cool" and accessible.
• The Merlin Bird ID app is highlighted as “Shazam for birds”, bridging technology and nature appreciation, and powering citizen science.

Quotes:

• Robert MacFarlane:

  "I love it. I'm terrible at birdsong and Merlin is helping me learn their languages. It’s a brilliant example of where tech and nature are not opposed." (08:57)

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5. Why Gen Z Loves Birding

[09:26–12:26]

• Birding participation has exploded among young people (over 1000% increase mentioned by MacFarlane).
• Gen Zers articulate a need to "touch grass" and find respite from digital overload.
• Birding is described as "about stopping, maybe closing your eyes... and hear the complexity of conversation and community that’s going on around you." (09:36)
• Field interviews at the RSPB Rainham Marshes reserve showcase young bird watchers and architecture students inspired by tranquility, community, and creative engagement.

Quotes:

• Alma/Trixie:

  "We want to reconnect back with nature. This is a really nice way to do it." (03:27)
  "It feels like you escape everything else. I don’t think about anything else... but when you go birding, it’s all you’re doing. You’re just looking and listening." (12:07)

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6. Social Media, Gamification, and Accessibility

[13:40–15:52]

• RSPB’s playful TikTok presence and youth council efforts are making birding more inclusive and visible.
• Birding is further popularized through social media’s creativity, humor, and sharability.
• The sense of competition and collection (like Pokémon) combined with tools like Merlin makes nature engaging.

Quotes:

• Jess Painter:

  "Bird watching is a way of experiencing nature in the natural world with joy at its heart. And it always makes me feel so much better when I go out and do some bird watching." (16:20)
  "Because social media is a place to be really creative and interpret bird watching in a new kind of way... it’s a really contagious hobby." (15:33)

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7. Birding as Mindfulness and Empowerment

[14:22–16:20]

• Birding provides an escape from screen time and stress, fosters mindfulness, and reconnects people to the present moment.
• Seeing and caring for birds leads to greater environmental awareness and a sense of hope, despite ongoing ecological crises.

Quotes:

• Jess Painter:

  "I think when I'm watching a bird, I'm not thinking about anything else. I have a break from checking my emails, scrolling on my phone. I'm entirely focusing on something, so it feels like a little bit of a treat to myself." (14:45) "The more that we know, the more that we kind of care. I think there's so few opportunities to look at the world and think, my gosh, that is amazing... that's worth fighting for." (16:20)

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Notable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• [04:12] Robert MacFarlane: “Around 600 million birds have gone from Europe since 1980… 3 billion in North America. And this is simply the number of birds that are no longer present in our skies.”
• [06:35] MacFarlane: “We’re not a pinnacle. We’re wired into the wild world. Birds help us remember that.”
• [08:57] MacFarlane: “Merlin is helping me learn their languages. It’s one of these brilliant examples where tech and nature are not opposed.”
• [09:36] MacFarlane: “My children ... talk about, you know, touching grass, which is just the need to reconnect.”
• [12:07] Alma/Trixie: “It feels like you escape everything else… when you go birding, it’s all you’re doing.”
• [14:45] Jess Painter: “I think when I’m watching a bird, I’m not thinking about anything else. I have a break from ... scrolling on my phone.”
• [16:20] Jess Painter: “The more that we know, the more that we kind of care... That's worth fighting for.”

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Conclusion

In a world where bird numbers are falling and nature seems distant, Gen Z is finding joy, community, and meaning through birding—using a mix of old-fashioned attentiveness and new technology. Birdwatching offers a break from screens, a spark for creativity, and a vital path to caring for the planet.

For further reading, soundscapes, or to purchase Robert MacFarlane’s new book, listeners are directed to theguardian.com.

Transcript

[Madeline Findlay]

This is the Guardian.

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[Madeline Findlay]

That's the dawn chorus taken by Science Weekly producer Ellie Sands in Bristol earlier this year. When spring awakens, so do the birds as the sun approaches the horizon in the early hours of the morning, birds begin to sing and call to each other, creating a cacophony of sound. Except in a lot of places. Today, the dawn chorus isn't very loud at all anymore. Take the UK. Since the 1970s, we've lost 73 million birds. Species like the turtle dove, the nightingale, and the cuckoo have suffered precipitous declines. It's hard to remember or imagine what it was like before. In fact, it's so difficult. The phenomenon has a name, shifting baseline syndrome. The sights and sounds of a degraded natural world feel normal to us, and we forget how it used to be. So, based on data provided by the British Trust for Ornithology, we decided to shift our baselines back and rebuild the Dawn Chorus. This is what you might have heard 20 years ago if you'd opened your bedroom window at 4:30am. Back in 1986. And here's what could have been waking you up before the alarm clock in 1966. What with habitat loss, pesticides, disease, cats, and now the climate crisis, the There are fewer birds around us than ever before. But spotting them is growing ever more popular, especially among Gen Z.

[Alma or Trixie (Architecture Students)]

We want to reconnect back with nature. This is a really nice way to do it.

[Madeline Findlay]

So today, as birds continue to disappear, why is birding making A comeback from the Guardian. I'm Madeline Findlay and this is Science Weekly. Award winning nature writer Robert McFarlane has recently published a new book with illustrator Jackie Morris, the Book of Birds, A compendium of 49 bird species under threat in Britain. In its foreword, Rob writes about shifting baseline syndrome. So when we sat down to chat, I asked him why he felt it was important.

[Robert MacFarlane]

I've become increasingly fascinated by this sbs Shifting baseline syndrome. Generational amnesia, it's sometimes also called. And the kind of absolute numbers of the thinning are that around 600 million birds have gone from Europe since 1980, actually, and that's a BTO RSPB and a Czech collaboration on that shocking figure, 3 billion in North America. And this is simply the number of birds that are no longer present in our skies. And so our dawns and springs are quieter and our skies are thinner, but, but we sort of don't notice. I mean, birders do, scientists do. But shifting baseline syndrome is this enormously powerful and I think very pernicious psychological mechanism whereby each new generation measures loss from the degraded baseline that it grew up into.

[Madeline Findlay]

And is it something that you personally reflect on in your own life? I mean, do you have experience in your life of feeling this loss of birds?

[Robert MacFarlane]

Yeah, I do. I mean, it's partly there in literature. And this is where I think writing and art have a role. It's a sort of activist role. Almost early in the book, I quote Richard Jeffreys, a 19th century naturalist, and he has a book called Nature near London from the 1880s. And he describes coming in on the train from Twickenham and he says, every bush, every twig, every clod had its songster. There was just to us now unimaginable abundance. And another North American naturalist, as Packard in the 1860s describes seeing a curlew flock a mile long and almost a mile wide. Our brains cannot comprehend this, right? If we see a two or three curlew, my heart lifts, but my heart also breaks.

[Madeline Findlay]

Today, a flock a mile long seems preposterous, but that's nothing. Take the now extinct passenger pigeon. In the 1800s, there were so many of them in North America, they would darken the skies overhead for days as they migrated. The fact that this sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, that's shifting baseline syndrome. And as well as losing the birds themselves, what also ends up happening is our chance to connect with nature on a regular, daily basis.

[Robert MacFarlane]

Rob I sometimes think of it like this, that we have this imagination of ourselves as like these human individuals walking around with this Brain in a box on the top of a machine, and that that's where our self begins and ends. That's kind of Cartesian model. But of course, we're not a pinnacle. We're wired into the wild world. Birds help us remember that. So when I'm in a woodland, spring, woodland, suddenly I feel like I've got 20 eyes which are noticing, you know, the sparrowhawk above, and I've got compound ears as well. I can suddenly hear and I feel expanded. I feel as though I'm part of a web that is far greater than me and far more complex than I can know, and that we live on a living Earth.

[Madeline Findlay]

And as bird numbers have continued to fall, each generation has fewer opportunities to have this kind of experience.

[Robert MacFarlane]

So I think Beth Povinelli, who's an anthropologist, she calls it nature literacy, I mean, is sort of slipping away. And I think one of the crucial ways of, as it were, greening our future and wilding our imaginations is just that, everyday nature literacy and growing it from the early years up. It's not elite knowledge. You don't need the scientific names. You can make your own names up for these birds, but I think learning to hear them. Birdsong is beautiful and distinct. A lapwing sounds like an old wireless set being twiddled. A nightingale sounds like drops of molten metal being plunged into water and taking form and sound there. So, yeah, play, write, look, observe, listen.

[Madeline Findlay]

And this is exactly what Gen Z are doing. They're bucking the trend and taking up birding in droves. What was once niche and old fashioned has become, dare I say it, cool. One factor in bringing a love of birding back is the Merlin Bird ID app, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York. It listens to recordings in real time, creating spectrograms with distinct patterns for each bird song that the app is trained to recognise. Put it on, hold it up in the air and it'll tell you what it thinks you're hearing. It's Shazam for birds. I asked Rob what he made of it.

[Robert MacFarlane]

I love it. It's amazing. I'm terrible at birdsong and Merlin is helping me learn their languages. And I think it's one of these brilliant examples of where tech and nature are not opposed. It's also a huge citizen science project because whenever I log on, it's like between 40,000 and 100,000 people are listening simultaneously. And that's all feeding data back to the Cornell lab. So it's this brilliant example of how ecology, conservation, individual connection and tech can all work together.

[Madeline Findlay]

And I'm sure it's a way in for a lot of young people as well. And I wondered, why do you think there's a bit of a renaissance going on in birding and young people?

[Robert MacFarlane]

It's so cool. I mean, you've probably got the numbers better than I have, but I think it's above 1000% increase in gen zers. My children who are in that age group, they talk about, you know, touching grass, which is just the need to reconnect. And I think we all recognize this. We live in this hectic, frantic, virtualized, digitalized world. And actually it's about a return to a form of belonging that has been chased and hustled and hassled out of us all. I speak to younger birders or birdie people and they just say, actually it's about stopping, maybe closing your eyes, maybe listening, try to delaminate, sort of unthread the different calls and hear the complexity of conversation and community that's going on around you. Maybe put your hands down, touch the grass.

[Madeline Findlay]

I decided to touch some grass myself and see if I could spot any Gen Z spotting birds. So on a beautifully sunny day, I headed to the Royal Society for the Protection of birds. The RSPB's rain and marshes just outside of London. It being a Tuesday morning, I wasn't sure I'd meet anyone below the age of 60, but lo and behold, okay, so I found some young people. So, guys, what are you doing here today?

[Alma or Trixie (Architecture Students)]

We're architecture students and we are designing a bird observation center for one of our year two projects.

[Madeline Findlay]

Have you had a chance to kind of sit and do any looking out the birds yourself?

[Alma or Trixie (Architecture Students)]

We did just visit one of the hides and it was really nice in there. Really like tranquil and like quiet and sheltered. And we kind of got the vibe of why people are interested and they like bird watching. I think when we started to speak to some of these people and like how they got into birdwatching and why they got into it, it seems like a really special community that really love what they do.

[Madeline Findlay]

And it wasn't just Alma and Trixie. There were two teenage boys there to photograph the birds. And I also met Caitlin, decked out in camo with a pair of binoculars around her neck.

[Alma or Trixie (Architecture Students)]

Cuckoo.

[RSPB Youth or Advertiser]

That's the cuckoo.

[Madeline Findlay]

Did you hear it? It's a good job we bumped into you so you could tell us what it was flying past us. And so, you know, for those young people who are not yet into birding, what would be your sell to them. Why would you say that they should get into it?

[Alma or Trixie (Architecture Students)]

I don't know. It's just really nice. It feels like you escape everything else. I don't think about anything else. Normally I have headphones in or I'm listening to a podcast or, you know, you didn't stop. But when you go birding, it's all you're doing. You know, just looking and listening.

[Madeline Findlay]

Coming up. What is it about birding that's hooked? Gen Z.

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[Madeline Findlay]

If you've seen any of the slightly unhinged videos on the RSPB's TikTok, you can be under no illusion that the charity is trying and succeeding in getting young people into birds.

[RSPB Youth or Advertiser]

See how many birds you can spot, or just lie in a field and ask why. And did you know that 16 to 24 year olds can now go for free? Please note the RSBB can't guarantee that visiting a reserve will change your life in any way, shape or form, or make it exponentially better and worse than it already is.

[Madeline Findlay]

Alongside social media, the RSPB also has a youth council giving them a seat at the table on environmental issues that will impact generations to come. I got on the line with Youth Council member Jess Painter, who's in her early 20s.

[Jess Painter]

Apparently my first word was bird. I don't know how my mum feels about that, but I was really lucky have grown up with an ecologist for a dad, so I was always encouraged to take notice of birds. But really I've actually gotten into bird watching properly in the last few years and I'm now proud to call myself a Bird watcher in a way maybe I wouldn't have done when I was a bit younger.

[Madeline Findlay]

Jess explained why birding has come back into her life.

[Jess Painter]

I think when I'm watching a bird, I'm not thinking about anything else. I have a break from, I guess, checking my emails, scrolling on my phone. I'm entirely focusing on something, so it feels like a little bit of a treat to myself. And I think it's a chance to get out of yourself and to focus on something external. They're such beautiful, amazing animals. They are a joy to watch. And if you just spend a bit of time to really notice them, you start to notice all these things, you know, even your common pigeon, your jackdaw. I was watching a jackdaw eating, I think it was kebab, mayonnaise out of a pot this morning from the window at work. And as soon as you start watching them, it really opens up this whole world and it makes a walk to work kind of a treat as opposed to a chore.

[Madeline Findlay]

Avoiding screen time might be a big motivator, but. But smartphones have also been the way in for lots of birders on social media and online.

[Jess Painter]

I've seen it have this huge uptake. People are really embracing it. And because social media is a place to be really creative and interpret bird watching in a new kind of way, one that's funny, one that's artistic, one that's just a lot more accessible, it's a really contagious hobby. It's really visual, it's really easy to share.

[Madeline Findlay]

Birding has always been a bit of a Pokemon style, gotta catch them all pursuit. But social media and the Merlin app is gamifying the hobby even more. Feeling invested in the natural world is key to reversing current trends and maybe even bringing back the dawn chorus of the past. Searching out nature or even noticing it on the walk to work is all part of breaking the cycle of our shifting baselines.

[Jess Painter]

The more that we know, the more that we kind of care. I think there's so few opportunities to look at the world and think, my gosh, that is amazing. That is beautiful. That's wonderful. That's worth fighting for. I think it's difficult because a lot of the news we get about nature is often really negative. And though there are loads of brilliant, exciting success stories, it's hard not to feel a little bit hopeless in that respect. Nature degradation in the UK is obviously a huge thing, but actually, if we can see the positive stories and if we can see the animals around us, we want to protect them and we care about them. It's such an important resource in our lives, for our mental health, for our understanding of the world around us. So bird watching is a way of experiencing nature in the natural world with joy at its heart. And it always makes me feel so much better when I go out and do some bird watching.

[Madeline Findlay]

Thanks to Robert McFarlane, Jess Painter, Alma, Trixie and Caitlin the Dawn Chorus was recreated using data provided by the British Trust for Ornithology and sound recordings submitted to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Xeno Canto by James Kennely, Peter Kennely, Mark Lewis, John Lowes and David Darrell Lambert. You can listen to our recreated Dawn Chorus across the decades on theguardian.com where environment correspondent Sandra Laville has written a fantastic article on the loss of birds and what it means to us. And if you'd like to support the Guardian, you can purchase the Book of birds by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris from Guardian Bookshop. And that's it for today. This episode was produced by me, Madeline Finley. It was sound designed by Joel Cox and the executive producer is Ellie Burie. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then.

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[RSPB Youth or Advertiser]

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