The Rise of Easy-Does-It Birding

From the Autumn 2025 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

Last winter my twin sister Gilia Angell and I (both age 51) and our mother Noel Angell (age 79) took our birding friend Gordon Orians (age 93) birding in the Skagit River delta of Washington State, where we live. We designed the day to bird by car and visit places with minimal walking distance for birding access, and with documented placement of benches for sitting.

Among the four of us, our past birding adventures have ranged far and wide, from across North America to South America and Africa. Orians, who in 1999 received a lifetime achievement award for ornithological research from the Cooper Ornithological Society, has traveled the world to study birds. Two decades ago he, my mother, and sister traveled on a birding trip to Tanzania and saw Kori Bustards on the Serengeti.

“The male went into this conspicuous display on a ridge in that open landscape,” Orians recalls. “He was visible to any female for miles!” 

But on that recent day in the Skagit Valley, our birding matched the current mobility and pace of our oldest members. The high point was watching Short-eared Owls from the stationary warmth of our car. Three owls flitted above the fields, like daytime moths, in search of voles. We four celebrated our easy sightings and shared company on this low-key day of birding.

For some birders once accustomed to a harder-charging experience of the field, life’s changes don’t have to mean the end of birding—just an adjustment in strategy, which could yield an opportunity to experience the beloved birding pastime differently. 

“I had to rethink my approach to adventure birding after I stepped in a rabbit hole and fractured my ankle,” says Edna R.S. Alvarez of Los Angeles, California, age 86—a lifelong birder with multiple international birding trips to her name. “While I still love what I’ve always loved, I no longer have legs and energy that keep pace with my brain. I want to stay active and not lose the richness of my life.”

Much of the birding population is aging. According to a 2022 demographic and economic analysis of birding in the United States published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the largest age group of birders (more than 23 million) is 65 years and older, and the second largest age group (nearly 19 million) is between the ages of 55 and 64. That’s a lot of birders for whom there will come a time when the pace of climbing in and out of vans across multiple days to chase a rarity is no longer within reach. 

For the birder (aging or not) who experiences a change in mobility—or just wants to move at a slower pace—it’s still possible to stay in the game. The game now just requires different expectations and preparation, both for the birder and for birding guides and tour operators.

Start with an assessment of physical capabilities

When planning for an international trip or a local outing, a birder who experiences a change in mobility can start with a considered assessment of their physical capabilities. The conventional birding outing often includes walking, getting in and out of a car, and long periods of standing.

“The two most important things are balance and stamina,” says Bret Whitney, cofounder and trip leader at Field Guides Birding Tours in Austin, Texas.

For aging birders who don’t feel as agile or energetic as they once were, this can be a hard place to start. 

“I acknowledge my limitations,” says Alvarez, referencing her reduced capacity to stand and walk, and her finite energy levels. “I have to sit now, as a birder. I can’t stand and balance to bend my neck back anymore.” She suspects the infamous warbler neck viewing posture may have contributed to lingering back issues for her.

As Alvarez weighed how her individual capacities would fit into a birding tour itinerary, she found a solution with a small custom tour company. 

“Edna is someone who inhabits and cares about this place in life and wants to fill this gap of reduced mobility birding,” says Ryan Dibala of Birding Man Wildlife Tours in Colorado. After being contacted by Alvarez, he designed a guided backroads and sit-birding tour for her of Colorado’s prairie landscape. “She is at this point in her life where she is less interested in ticking and more about awe.” 

As Alvarez found out, birding from a vehicle can be just as rewarding as going into the field on foot. 

“Five feet off the road it was raining Lark Buntings,” says Dibala. “Edna had seen them before, but never like this.”

 “Sitting in the prairie was everything I wanted,” says Alvarez.

Dibala now offers an accessible birdwatching tour with customizable options for “mobility levels” and “easy-to-reach locations.” 

“I’ve also run birding-by-ear tours for folks with low vision,” Dibala says.

Some birding guides say they welcome information and input up front from tour participants, as it helps them customize tours for the best experience or suggest alternatives. 

“We keep a database of what clients are asking for,” says Caio Brito of Brazil Birding Experts, based in Fortaleza. He says self-assessment of mobility and energy by birders can help him determine how to craft the best experience. Even if most tours require the ability to walk a minimum of a quarter mile, details like bathroom stops and on-site seating can be managed, says Brito, who brings portable stools on his tours by request.

“On most of our tours, if we slow down, the client still gets what they came for,” he says.

Look for Accessibility Details in birding tour descriptions

Some companies offer standard tours that are designed with accessibility in mind.

“We’ve offered Relaxed & Easy tours for almost 20 years,” says Barry Lyon, the CEO of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours in Austin, Texas. “There’s an awareness in the last 10 to 15 years that older people still have the desire and means to travel. The market is there, and our tours have been successful.”

VENT’s Relaxed & Easy tours are limited to the U.S., Central America, and northern South America to accommodate shorter air and ground travel time, and to assure close access to birds from established lodges. The Relaxed & Easy Costa Rica itinerary emphasizes close-range birding: Ticking birds like the Rufous-backed Wren and the Clay-colored Thrush from the Hotel Bougainvillea, the first night’s accommodations; looking for a Spectacled Owl roost along a country road; and beholding Long-billed Hermits and Bronze-tailed Plumeleteers at close proximity at the hummingbird feeding station of a private residence. 

“We consider four components in these tours,” says Lyon. “Lodges where guests can stay multiple days, terrain that is flat and easy, places with close access to birds, and limited driving time between locations.”

Many guides say it’s worth contacting the company to ask about accessibility, no matter the tour model. VENT provides contact info for the operations manager of each listed tour on their website. Whitney of Field Guides Birding Tours says his company proactively contacts each participant to have a conversation about mobility. Both Whitney and Lyon say they will suggest other tours to consider if needed, once they understand the client’s needs. 

Edna Alvarez says that she discovered Birding Man Wildlife Tours through her own careful research, in which she vetted companies by email. 

“People are willing to be helpful,” she says. And, she adds, starting with an email conversation is a good way to interview a prospective guide. “Emails are telling how a guide will be and if they have worked with a client like me before.”

Look for accessibility features in the built environment

Many birders want to bird locally, which may still prove to be a challenge if locations are not built to be accessible for a wide range of people. The infrastructure of the greater landscape determines how far a birder can enter it.

Recently she inquired about the terrain of a nighttime owl prowl at Seward Park in Seattle, and the guide immediately offered to reorient the outing to accessible trails. 

“I was heartened that I could reach out to someone and they’d modify the trip,” McClure says. “It can be done!” 

For my dear family friend Gordon Orians, birding excursions, even locally, often mean scoping out resting spots along with potential species.

“I look for benches!” he says. “I don’t have the stamina anymore. I couldn’t do what we did in Africa.”

But he says that altering how he goes birding, as an aging birder, hasn’t changed the core of what birding means to him: “I can still share a marvelous experience of birding with others.”