People around the world got really into feeding birds during the pandemic
Countries with higher species of bird diversity saw the biggest jump in searches for proper wild bird feeding.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/bird-watching-feeding-covid-19/Open linkView original on kbin.social
Pro-tip: the Merlin app by Cornell is free and awesome--it uses your mic to pic up nearby bird songs and tells you what kind of bird it most-likely is. It's really impressive and even does a good job differentiating multiple birds at the same time.
And if you did, and want a fun tech project to track what species are in your yard, check out BirdNET Pi: https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi
As an aside, the UK has been obsessed with bird feeding for decades - to the extent that some species are evolving beaks more suited for feeders
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-20-british-birds-adapt-their-beaks-birdfeeders
Watching birbs is fun. We had a flock of sparrows that would adopt fledgeling blackbirds sometimes.
Ha, even I put out some nesting boxes. More food than places to hide for them around these parts.
And this company probably did really well during that time: mybirdbuddy.com
(I don’t work there or anything, just think their product is pretty cool!)