For what it’s worth, this article cites a longitudinal study done by German researchers.

They basically installed a bunch of bird feeders outside nursing homes to see if watching birds improves the health of the elderly people. The researchers concluded that it did:

    Nursing home staff were the first to see the difference the birds made. "For weeks, they haven't seen a smile on [a resident's] face, and then they see the smile," Kals says.
    Some of the memory and concentration improvements are evident after just three to four weeks, Kals says.

https://www.lbv.de/umweltbildung/fuer-seniorenheime/ausstatt...

You have quite a biased sample because most people are not going to suffer going to remote parts of Scotland to look for birds, so you are only seeing the more devoted birdwatchers.

Birdwatching can still be enjoyed in most places without needing to travel far. Birds are less active in bad weather so you don’t need expensive outdoor gear, and in many places there will be freely accessible nature reserves with hides in which one can sit in shelter to watch birds.

The highest quality glass is going to get pretty expensive (camera lenses can get to the region of $20k; binoculars $4k or so) but there are also much cheaper options and often these can be quite reasonable: you don’t need to take photos of birds; a superzoom point-and-shoot can work great; more expensive binoculars make a bigger difference in low light and if you’re young (older people’s pupils won’t dilate as much so bigger objectives at a lower magnification won’t be a huge help).

I feel like mostly you’re observing that rich people spend lots of money on their hobbies and not that opening your eyes to look at birds is some expensive exclusionary activity.

Birdwatching is truly one of the cheapest possible hobbies you can have. Yes, you can make it expensive if you're committed to photographing them and traveling to remote locations to find "life list" birds, but that's not the vast majority of hobbyists.

It is easy to spend serious coin on camping/backcountry, but you don't really need to buy anything to watch birds. Just your eyes and Merlin if you're cool with using your phone or your region's bird guide if you're not. If you want to make a thing of it, then, yeah, get nice binoculars with good lenses.

Something I learned from I-forget-where: if you hear an interesting bird call, close your eyes, look up and point your nose to the source of the sound. Open your eyes, and, surprise, it's probably a Northern Cardinal, Mockingbird or some kind of thrush! lol

> On a side note, the Merlin bird ID app from Cornell University is great.

Do you know how it compares to iNaturalist? I'm not a birdwatcher, but I have iNat on my phone and sometimes use it to identify birds, and it seems to do a great job.

I'd really say the opposite - birdwatching cuts across socioeconomic classes surprisingly well in the UK. At least the subarea of bitding which is focused on rare birds.

This is also a great app: https://github.com/woheller69/whoBIRD

> "Her team's findings have prompted German health insurance companies – who, among others, initially funded the research project – to invest in setting up bird feeders and viewing areas in more than 400 nursing homes across Bavaria. "It was so effective, it just economised money," Kals says."

Perhaps we need to provide opportunities for less well off people to access nature? It might have a positive cost-benefit. And design care homes around gardens? 'forest bathing' is apparently often recommended in Japan based on studies of blood pressure and other physical indicators.

Munlochy: if you ever saw a geezer wearing an ex-army parka, builders safety boots with Opticron bins it might have been me. I don't get up there often enough to warrant the pricey stuff.

I'd say a lot of activities like this can be done for cheap or free. Taking an elderly person to the park is free, it just costs time. Binoculars are ubiquitous, and bird books are a dime a dozen in your local charity shop.

The critical thing is that these people need a hand to get out of the house or do any kind of activity. And I think that's partially behind a lot of ailments that affect the elderly, they don't go out, don't get physically, mentally or sensorily stimulated enough so they atrophy in all those areas. On top of age related conditions like senility, parkinsons, altzheimer's, etc of course.

Not sure, but this is definitely a thing - the "a single glass of red wine a day is good for you" claim is pretty likely more about how people who can afford daily wine are probably wealthier people with better access to healthcare, not that any amount of daily ethanol intake has a therapeutic effect. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Did they adjust for demographics?