Living: All That Jizz

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Bird watching. Noun (archaic). A form of harmless staring, conducted in woody areas, by genial eccentrics often named Matilda or Chauncey.

Birding. Noun (neologism). Dynamic, addictive and highly contagious behavior combining hunting skills, aesthetic delight, intellectual analysis and the dreamy withdrawal from normal life, especially during spring migration.

Every spring, billions of birds, increasingly restless from the secretion of seasonal hormones, mass into flocks, burst into the sky and pour up the great flyways across the U.S. and Canada. Millions of birders, just as restless but without hormonal justification, compulsively pour outdoors in search of vireos, tanagers, flycatchers, hawks and the stars of the season, brilliantly colored warblers.

In these fleeting weeks, birders head for one or more of the nation's famous migrant hot spots such as High Island, Texas, Big Morongo Wildlife Reserve in California, Point Pelee in Ontario and the Ramble in Manhattan's Central Park. Some will bird in a local park or simply settle into a backyard chair. Says Jerry Sullivan, a Chicago nature writer: "The nice thing is that you don't have to go some special place. You can do it just about anywhere."

During migration, birders tend to show up late at the office, or seem to need a day or two extra to complete out-of-town business. Even a Saturday trip to the dry cleaner's has been known to take two hours or more. In spring, Nature Writer Lola Oberman carries binoculars around her Maryland house all day, just in case a good bird appears at a window. And bumper stickers saying I BRAKE FOR BIRDS had better be taken seriously: on the highway, birders have been known to lose control when a good bird flies over. Pete Bacinski, one of New Jersey's best-known birders, totaled his Chevy Nova when he took his eyes off the road to look for his bird guide.

Once the genteel pursuit of an esoteric minority, birding is evolving into a mass sport. A 1980 study for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that some 2 million Americans were highly committed birders, meaning that they watch regularly, use a field guide, keep a life list and are able to identify a hundred or more species of birds. About 7 million Americans are fairly interested birders (able to identify at least 40 species), and 60 million, or one American in four, are at least casual watchers. Veteran birders, such as L. Hartsell Cash, a retiree in Winston-Salem, N.C., are pleasantly surprised by the sport's new respectability. "In the '40s and '50s it was still a little embarrassing to be a bird watcher," he says. "Now there's no doubt about it -- birding is In."