The Joy of Birds: The benefits of counting or rating birds for joy
Emotions matter. They help change mindsets, are at the heart of relationships and are expertly targeted to fuel consumption — yet the rational mind can dismiss emotions as inferior to facts and figures. The pathways to nature connectedness and our interventions include emotions to help form a close bond with nature. Our research paper in Urban Ecosystems uses a simple twist to turn a more rationale nature experience into a more emotional experience. The research compared the benefits of counting birds to rating the joy they bring. Afterall, perhaps birds are what emotions look and sound like.
Alongside trees, birds are the envoys of the natural world, bringing nature into our everyday lives — an opportunity to rekindle forgotten connections. For many, watching and feeding birds is already a source of pleasure. Wouldn’t it be great to enhance that experience further? Especially if that was as simple noting the joy they bring. Previous research has already shown that consciously being aware of the wonders of nature on a walk brings greater benefits.The ‘joy watching’ twist builds on an idea I had of focussing on the emotions birds bring. Thanks to promotion by the Self Isolating Bird Club and assistance from the Alpkit Foundation, 156 people took part in the study and they were randomly allocated to one of two groups. The first group (the ‘Count’ group) were asked to watch the birds in their garden for thirty minutes, identifying each species and counting how many individual birds of each species visited (similar to the RSPBs Big Garden Birdwatch). The other group (the ‘Joy’ group) also watched and identified birds in their garden, but instead of counting them they were asked to rate their feelings of joy on seeing each species. All participants filled out a survey before and after the activity, which measured their feelings of wellbeing, anxiety and connection to nature.
Participants in both groups had improved wellbeing, decreased anxiety, and stronger connection to nature, but the decrease in anxiety was greatest for those in the ‘joy’ group whose anxiety levels dropped by over 20%. This suggests that paying attention to feelings of joy can enhance the psychological benefits gained from watching birds. These results show the positive impact of watching birds…
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