Document is current

Article History

Received: 29 December 2025

Revised: 1 May 2026

Accepted: 27 July 2026

First Online: 2 September 2026

Declarations

Conflict of interest: TBP and WMH work closely with Project FeederWatch as part of the same center.

Ethical approval: Data were collected under Virginia Tech IRB # 20-917 and Cornell IRB # IRB0145620.

Positionality: Most of the authors are academic researchers with backgrounds in conservation social science, participatory science, and ecology living in the United States and the United Kingdom. Additionally, one of our co-authors is a practicing psychotherapist, and one is an occupational therapist. Our training influenced the coding framework we used in this paper and the types of wellbeing impacts we highlight. Many of us have fed and observed birds for leisure, and our own lived experiences of participating in these activities may influence how we interpret 2 participant responses. Based on our own primarily-positive experiences and prior research on the wellbeing benefits of interacting with nature, our project aim was specifically to understand the positive wellbeing impacts of feeding birds, which influenced how our questions were framed. The data originated from the United States and Canada, and findings may differ in other regions of the world for ecological and cultural reasons.