TRANSCRIPT
Meeting a three-time premiership winning rugby league player to look at birds on the outskirts of Western Sydney wasn't on my 2025 bucket list, but 27-year-old Penrith Panther's hooker, Mitch Kenny has agreed to show me his new hobby.
“I like getting outside anyway and going on walks and stuff like that, so it's probably just an addition to that. I think it started out as a joke, but you can't joke birdwatching. You're either going out and looking for birds or you're not.”
As we walk down the track, which I'm told is a local favorite for the diversity of habitats, you can see in such a short space, he stops frequently to point out the birds we're seeing,
“They were just a couple doves. I think they barred shoulder doves, just like pigeon looking birds, which we don't hate, but some we just don't care about that much. What is that? It might be blackface cuckoo shikes.”
“How did you get into bird watching?”
“Mainly through my brother. He's always been super keen on wildlife and he's always done this sort of stuff since I moved out here and he lives just up the mountains, started going out in these little expeditions and then tried to steal his hobby and make it a bit of my own and bought myself a pair of binoculars this year and started trying to get into this. And yeah, still just learning.”
It was in the Blue Mountains that he saw what's known as a spark bird - the term for a bird that gets someone seriously into bird watching after they see it.
“I always used to go to this one lookout in the lower mountains anyway, but there was signage there that said lookout for the peregrine falcon, the world's fastest bird. It's a raptor. So it was pretty cool and I started going and taking my binoculars every time and it probably took me six or seven times before I finally saw it, and that was my first time feeling the rush of getting a good get.”
Here's one of a growing number of young people getting into birdwatching. After operating for five years, the inner west based birdwatching group, Sydney Bird Clubs, saw one of its biggest ever turnouts In February, 2020,
“Just before COVID, it felt to us like we were on the cusp of a birdwatching boom. So there was a curiosity among people, and then I think during the pandemic it turned into a hardcore passion for a lot of people.”
That’s co-founder Stephanie Chambers, who says the club was set up to break the barriers to getting into birdwatching. The club's seen an influx of younger members in recent years. Environmentalist and host of Death by Birding podcast, Dr Cesar Puechmarin says the pandemic was a catalyst for many new birders.
“I think birds have been thrown into our orbit, especially post COVID. So during COVID, a lot of people were stuck indoors. A lot of people were unable to explore, to go outside, and people started noticing the birds in their local environment, their own backyard. You have a generation of people who grew up playing video games or playing games like Pokemon, and this hobby of birdwatching fits perfectly, right. It's a never ending hobby. You can't finish it, you can't complete it. It's not like a video game that you can complete and then that's it. There will always be more birds.”
Ms Chambers says birdwatching allows people to tap into something that's almost an antidote to the internet.
“I view it as a form of resistance against technology and social media. With our modern world, with the internet and social media, we're losing something and when you bird watch, you're not only just watching birds, you're watching seasonal changes, you're observing migrations. And so I think it tunes you into something that you would be without if you didn't. So I think it strikes at the core of who we are as humans.”
But that act of resistance against social media is now popping up online. Senior public relations manager at Bird Life Australia, Sean Dooley says the new generation of birders are turning to social media
“And we were certainly worried in the digital age that people were just on their screens and not out in nature. But the sort of, I dunno what you call it, like the nature TikTok or the naturegram bird Instagram has really taken over because birds are so beautiful to look at and you can actually have an adventure seeing them, that it has attracted a whole tribe of digital natives to it.”
That online community has moved into the real world for Mitch Kenny, who's been out on a number of bird dates since he started posting about birds online.
“You meet someone, you talk a bit of shit, go for a walk and hopefully see a few birds. It is pretty fun. I think I'm pretty keen to go out with someone who knows what they're looking for. And then some people are pretty keen to meet a footy player and stuff like that, so there's a mutual exchange there. So everyone wins.”
Mr. Dooley says that transfer of knowledge is important.
“When you move into the wild, there is a risk that you were disturbing the natural life cycle of birds. But I think when the community find each other, they do start to, that type of advice is like, Hey dude, you shouldn't really be going up to that nest because that eagle will abandon the chicks if you come too close. That sort of information starts to get shared.”
He says, when people get more interested in birds, it has flow on effects.
“Hopefully that in a lot of people's birdwatching journey, they come to the realization that to continue the passion that they love because of the variety we have in Australia, we want to keep that variety and that people are going to have to do something about it to save the things that bring them joy.”
Something Mitch Kenny says he's already experiencing.
“Once you get keen on birds, then you start to learn which birds are under pressure from what and the role that you can play in that. And that's when I think you start to make changes in your own life and the way that you interact with the world and the relationship that you have with the environment around you.”
