Interest in feeding wild birds soared during lockdown, finds global study

Covid-19 restrictions ushered in worldwide avian enthusiasm, with potential wellbeing benefits

Interest in wild bird feeding surged over the pandemic, a study has found.

Researchers used data from Google Trends to assess the weekly frequency of searches for terms including “bird feeder”, “bird food” and “bird bath” from January 2019 to May 2020. After two weeks of lockdown, there was a dramatic increase in bird-related searches.