National Birding Day

April 5, 2008

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Profile America — Saturday, April 5th. This is National Birding Day — celebrating a growing national pastime. The idea is to encourage people to put up bird feeders and houses, learn about the birds in their area and take a trip to observe birds. Some people make a distinction between birding and bird watching and consider birding to be a more serious form of the hobby, more focused on finding and studying birds than general observation. Whatever the term, more than 12 million Americans enjoy watching birds on a regular basis. The binoculars and scopes that are important to the hobby are part of the $922 million spent on optics in the nation’s sporting goods stores each year. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau on the Web at <www.census.gov>.

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events 2008, p. 206
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2008, t. 1213, 1223
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2008edition.html