See something, care for something
Share a Stare
A group of owls is called a stare. Similarly to humans, owls have binocular vision which enables them to see an object with both eyes at the same time and they also have a part of the retina that is called the fovea, which is responsible for the precision of their vision.


“Well, it’s called birdwatching for some reason. It’s kind of obvious which sense is the primary. ” said Lio* when I first interviewed him about birding and the senses. Sight is the star sense of birdin and regulates how birding is performed. All of our birding sessions started early in the morning in order to watch the birds when they were more active. However, watching is not a ubiquitous phenomenon. Sight is engaged in different aspects and levels when birding and it differs among birders.
On a first level, sight is engaged in finding the birds and succeeding in this task depends on the environment and the type of bird you want to see. “Water birds are the easiest to watch, they are already there, in the water. You don’t have to keep great distance and use binoculars to appreciate them. It’s relaxing to just sit and gaze at the ducks and geese swimming and diving for a snack” explained Ash*. Watching water birds is by far the easiest type of birdwatching given the size of the birds and the accessibility of landscape they tend to be in. One does not need to look up or take a deep look at a complex panorama when watching water birds. However, when looking for other species like songbirds other kinds of seeing are engaged. Scanning is usually the first thing to do when looking up a tree,”like trying to find where’s Wally”. Throughout my research I contemplated the relevance of English vocabulary whenever the participants would talk about sight. Being a native Spanish speaker, I noticed that there is a greater variety of words to describe ways of seeing in English in comparison to the Spanish vocabulary which may influence a different kind of seeing in Spanish, like a kind of linguistic synesthesia.
Usually, once you spot a movement between the leaves and branches you can then grab your binoculars and watch the bird. Magnified vision through binoculars or big camera lenses are essential for birding. Since the group was mostly conformed by amateurs, many of the participants agreed that getting used to looking with magnified vision was a bit of a challenge. “It’s frustrating when you spot a bird but then you can’t find it with the binoculars because you don’t know what you are pointing at or you got the focus messed up”. In addition, birds tend to move fast so there is a big chance that by the time you spotted one on a tree branch and found it with your binoculars, it will be gone pretty quickly. Nonetheless, having a zoomed look into the bird was found as extremely enlightening among all birders. The common fascination is generally about the bird's colors and how they change between species. Most of the time, understanding a bird's color and pattern is the key not only to identify the species but also to know more about it: its gender and age. For example on our third walk at Hackney Marshes we spotted a variety of tits: coal tits, great tits, blue tits and long winged tits, many of us had nev
er seen this variety in detail, specially the long-tailed one. Anna*, who was a first timer, was fascinated by this species “ I always saw long-tailed tits as little black and white balls with a tail that bounced in the air. I didn’t know that their bellies were pink and their faces were so adorable!” On that comment, we started chatting about this species and agreed that long tailed tits were “borbs”, an internet term to refer to very round and small birds. Another example is when we found some tufted ducks at Sutton, Lio pointed out that one of the specimens in front of us was particularly purple, that he had never seen one like that. Pointing out the bits of the birds that each of the participants finds interesting enables a way of engaging with the other participants. A detailed watch, then, becomes a central element in how kinship is produced by sharing a for a very brief time, a common small-scale sight. Another element of sight mediated kinship in this context was the shared admiration for a bird’s cuteness. On a one on one interview with Jack*, he talked about this experience of sharing the view of something cut from a neuroscientific perspective. “It is a natural reaction to be moved by a bird’s face. To watch a being that is tiny and round, with big eyes and with a small nose, well in this case a bill, triggers a sense of adorableness that makes us want to protect them as if they were our babies. So, in a way, when we are feeling that a little bird is absolutely cute, we are having a shared chemical experience of protection or even caregiving.”