The Best Spots for Bird Watching in the U.S.
As the pandemic has stripped away most forms of human interaction, an increasing number of people have been gravitating towards an entirely different life form altogether: birds. Ideal for maintaining social distance, birding allows partakers to find adventure as near as their local park or just out their window at a feeder, fastidiously plugging their sightings into online communities like eBird and raving about the painted bunting that appeared for one fleeting moment early that morning.
An added benefit to birding is the ease of entry: while it always helps to have some trusty equipment—like binoculars and a guide book—all that’s really required to get started is a nearby patch of wilderness (even a city park, like New York’s Central Park with its 200 different avian species). Whether you’re a card-carrying Audubon member or a newcomer that just spotted their first chickadee, birding offers a sense of closeness to nature that few other recreational activities can.
From Nebraska's Platte River Valley to the rainforests of Puerto Rico, here are eight of the very best birdwatching sites in the U.S.