I often like to remind readers that correlation does not equal causation. Just because scientists find a link between X and Y doesn’t mean X causes Y, especially when the study is small and needs way more follow-up before anyone should treat it like gospel. That said, as a birder and the husband of an even more intense birder, I am choosing to 100 percent believe a study of 58 Canadians that found birders have denser brains that make us better at thinking and stuff.
According to the research published in JNeurosci, the Journal of Neuroscience, experienced birdwatchers show increased density in brain regions tied to attention, perception, memory, and object recognition.
Not only that, but MRIs actually showed a structural difference between the brains of novice birders and expert birders. When tested, the experts were better at identifying both familiar and unfamiliar bird species, suggesting to the researchers that the small but noticeable changes in the brain were actually providing some benefit.
How Legit Is the Birdwatching Brain Study?
If all of this rightfully sounds ridiculous to you, understand that it does have some strong legit scientific backing, and it comes in the form of a concept called neuroplasticity. That’s your brain’s ability to recognize its own functions and connections after it’s been developed by the years of training and hard work that go into getting good at something, especially something that covers a lot of disciplines. Musicians and pro athletes, for instance, tend to have high levels of neuroplasticity. Birding encompasses several different skill sets, like visual scanning, memory recall, environmental awareness, and pattern recognition.
Of course, as is often the case, the researchers themselves admit that this doesn’t definitively prove that birding causes these brain differences. It could just as easily be that people with brains wired this way are naturally drawn to birding, for whatever reason. Add in the fact that birders walk a lot, spend tons of time in nature, and treat birding as a social activity, and you’ve got a recipe for a hobby that naturally promotes brain health.
Despite the study’s findings, we may never establish a clear-cut cause and effect for birding and brain changes, but there is something interesting happening here. Birding seems to represent an intersection of several behaviors that are good for your brain. Add on top of that the fact that, if nothing else, it’s always good for your brain to obsess over a niche little hobby that activates a bunch of different parts of your brain, because interests like these tend to leave a positive, permanent mark.
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