The human health and well-being benefits of birds: a systematic scoping review of interaction patterns

Interactions with birds may contribute meaningfully to mental health and well-being, particularly in everyday settings where access to other forms of nature is limited. Recent reviews suggest that birdwatching, birding, companion birds, and other human-bird interactions have measurable benefits for health and well-being. We conducted a systematic scoping review mapping how specific interaction patterns with birds have been studied in relation to human health and well-being. We aimed to identify and map how human-bird interaction patterns were associated with human health or well-being; highlight which pairings of interaction pattern-benefits are most and least studied; recommend needs for future research; and ultimately to expand and inform Ecological Medicine practices involving birds that support reciprocity, relationality, and connectedness. Across 196 studies published by November 2025, we found 10 or more studies each supporting the following conclusions. Listening to birdsong is linked to better cognitive functioning, mental health and well-being and physiological markers of health; birds in the media or in artwork, as well as companion or captive birds, are linked with better mental health and well-being; incidental contact with birds (i.e., living in nature-rich areas with birds) as well as birding or birdwatching are linked with better mental health and well-being as well as pro-environmental attitudes, behaviors, or nature connectedness. While half of these findings are derived from studies without a control/comparison group, the evidence is suggestive and supportive of human-bird interventions in nature-based therapy. However, we note that our search terms did not target adverse outcomes as a result of interacting with birds; therefore, these findings may reflect a biased perspective on this topic based on the included literature, warranting additional research into any potential adverse consequences of human-bird interactions as well.

A growing body of literature indicates that spending time outdoors in nature and interacting with nature is not merely an amenity but also a driving factor in human health and well-being (Frumkin et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2021). This literature includes myriad forms of nature and patterns of interaction, from outdoor recreation (Holland et al., 2018) to living near greenspace (Yang et al., 2021) or bluespace (White et al., 2020), interactions with domesticated and wild animals (Wells, 2009), and myriad nature-based programs such as park prescriptions, horticultural therapy, and forest therapy (Shrestha et al., 2025). Over 100 health outcomes have been linked with nature (Twohig-Bennett and Jones, 2018). Among these, loneliness (Astell-Burt et al., 2022) and mental health (Labib et al., 2022) have been increasingly of interest, given loneliness being labeled as an epidemic by the U.S. Surgeon General (Surkalim et al., 2022) and the high rates of anxiety and depression across cultures and ages (Santomauro et al., 2024; World Health Organization, 2025).

The health benefits of nature are explained by several theories in environmental psychology (Devlin, 2018). The biophilia hypothesis, proposed by biologist E.O. Wilson (1984), posits that humans possess an innate, genetically determined tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. This hypothesis provides a rationale for why interacting with other species positively impacts human well-being; they fulfill an intrinsic human need. Secondly, attention restoration theory (Kaplan, 1995) suggests that modern urban environments, which require constant directed attention to navigate stimuli and inhibit distractions (Sullivan and Li, 2021), lead to mental fatigue. Components of the natural environments tend to be rich in stimuli that evoke “soft fascination, “ effortlessly holding attention without demanding cognitive exertion. This allows the human brain’s capacity for directed attention to rest and replenish. Thirdly, the stress reduction theory (Ulrich et al., 1991) proposes that nonthreatening stimuli in nature trigger psychophysiological reactions that buffer against and help relieve stress. These processes involve activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to decreased autonomic arousal, manifested as lower heart rate, lower blood pressure, and reduced levels of stress hormones. A fourth and complementary account comes from recent work on predictive processing. Tryjanowski and Murawiec (2026) propose an integration of active inference and the “predostatic mind” framework (alarm, seek, and balance modes of brain function) in which birdwatching serves as a clinically relevant exercise in flexibly switching between mental modes, with possible implications for ADHD, depression, and addiction. This framework complements attention restoration and stress reduction perspectives, particularly for interaction patterns that engage active visual or auditory discrimination.

Across the varied types of nature and nature interactions, interactions with birds represent a particularly potent and accessible medium for realizing these health benefits. Birds have been revered for their beauty, song, and symbolism across cultures and millennia (Bernacchi, 2014; Robbins, 2017; Birkhead, 2022). Their ubiquity makes them a common form of human-wildlife interaction in most human-occupied terrestrial habitats (Smith and Sutton, 2008; Andrade et al., 2022). Furthermore, interactions with birds are uniquely multisensory, engaging both visual faculties through observation of plumage and behavior, and auditory senses through birdsong and calls (Ratcliffe et al., 2013, 2016; Andrade et al., 2022). The non-threatening and often melodious harmonics of birdsong align well with the mechanisms of stress reduction theory, signaling environmental safety and promoting relaxation, while the dynamic and unpredictable behavior of birds serves as a prime example of “soft fascination, “ a central component of attention restoration theory (Ratcliffe et al., 2013). Finally, birds serve as bioindicators of ecosystem health, with noted declines in bird populations providing early warnings of environmental contaminants, such as DDT and heavy metals, that pose significant risks to human health (Richard et al., 2021; Birkhead, 2022).

Despite these theories supporting the health benefits of birds, there is limited understanding of the broad array of potential benefits associated with specific “interaction patterns” with birds, defined as a human action involving birds (Browning et al., 2025b; Dunker, 2025; Li and Kahn, 2025). Following Kahn and colleagues, we define an interaction pattern (IP) as a generalizable characterization of the essential features of human-bird interaction, abstract enough to apply across diverse situations yet specific enough to capture the meaningful structure of engagement across different kinds of birds, people, purposes, and moments in time (Kahn and Weiss, 2017; Li and Kahn, 2025). In their most basic form, IPs can be expressed through a simple linguistic structure: a verb naming the human action, a preposition indicating the relationship, and a noun naming the bird-related element (e.g., watching wild birds at a feeder; listening to recorded birdsong; caring for a companion bird). Interaction patterns are thus generalizable categories of concrete behavioral episodes, not equivalent or substitutable forms of contact. In the context of human-bird interactions, one could imagine many related but mechanistically distinct families of IPs such as direct, intentional interactions (e.g., birdwatching, birding, citizen science, raising or handling birds); care-focused interactions (e.g., companion or therapy birds); and many others (i.e., incidental, simulated, and symbolic in books and media). As such, IPs may warrant individual attention when interpreting research findings on human-bird interactions writ large, offering the opportunity to draw conclusions across domains of ways people interact with birds rather trying to draw conclusions from singular and unique instances.

Systematic identifications of interaction patterns are extremely limited, though recent research by Dunker et al., (2025) identified the following patterns among adolescents: seeing, watching, or pointing out birds; hearing or listening to birds; photographing or recording birds; whistling to birds; acting like birds; training birds; and caring for birds (Dunker et al., 2025). Other interaction patterns have been discussed in singular fashion elsewhere, including calling birds (Kahn and Weiss, 2017); finding birds, bird nests, and bird eggs (Yerbury and Lukey, 2021; Birkhead, 2022); identifying and collecting (killing) birds for scientific study (Birkhead, 2022); noticing bird migration patterns (Kahn et al., 2010); intentionally feeding wild birds (Soga and Gaston, 2020); and many others, including those with negative human health impacts, such as colliding with wildlife (Mason, 1992) or sustaining injury while caring for animals (Kurrle et al., 2004).

Five recent reviews begin to provide us with an understanding of the human health and well-being benefits of interacting with birds. Camacho-Guzmán et al. (2023) identified 41 articles on people’s connection to nature, bird interactions, and human well-being, but the review focused on a methodological descriptions (i.e., journal outlets, geographic contexts, measurement tools) rather than summarizing the study findings and drawing conclusions about the relationships among these variables. Gray et al. (2023) provided a sweeping review of benefits and bird interaction patterns but only through 2020; their review excluded recent papers, including the large volume of research and interest during the COVID-19 pandemic (Labib et al., 2022; Lenda et al., 2023; Patwary et al., 2024). Béguin et al. (2024) systematically reviewed only therapy programs involving companion or domesticated birds, excluding interactions with wild birds. Andrews et al. (2026) reviewed a range of outcomes but focused on only two interaction patterns: birding (i.e., identifying species) and bird-watching (i.e., observing birds). Correspondingly, their review did not examine other potentially beneficial interaction patterns. A fifth review by Sakhardande et al. (2025) is ongoing and systematically examining the mental health benefits of birds. However, this review is expected to exclude some interaction patterns, interventions, and outcomes that may be important to consider when understanding the wide-ranging benefits of interacting with birds (Browning et al., 2025a).

Building on past work, the current study synthesizes the evidence on the human health and well-being benefits associated with diverse patterns of interaction with birds. Our objectives are: (1) identifying the ways (“interaction patterns”) of humans interacting with birds that have human health or well-being benefits; (2) mapping the specific health or well-being benefits associated with each of these interaction patterns; (3) highlighting which pairings of interaction pattern-benefits are most and least studied; and (4) recommending needs for future research based on these findings. Our longer-term goal is to expand and inform data-driven Ecological Medicine practices (Makhinson et al., 2025) involving birds that provide human health or well-being benefits through supporting reciprocity, relationality, and connectedness, while also benefiting birds and planetary health.

This study was conducted as a systematic literature review with scoping objectives (i.e., identifying and categorizing the breadth of human-bird interaction patterns and associated health outcomes) following the methodological guidance outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) (Tricco et al., 2018). We pre-registered our protocol on December 10, 2025, including its rationale, eligibility criteria, methods, and uniqueness relative to other ongoing reviews (Sakhardande et al., 2025) in the PROSPERO registry (CRD420251243113) (Browning et al., 2025a).

Search strategy

We conducted our systematic literature search by keyword searches in Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and PubMed from database inception through November 16, 2025. The keywords were developed iteratively through pilot testing Boolean terms to retrieve relevant articles previously identified by the first author and those in three existing reviews (Gray et al., 2023; Béguin et al., 2024; Andrews et al., 2026) while balancing sensitivity and minimizing irrelevant articles. Ultimately, the Boolean terms included bird-related terms and health- and well-being-related terms within article titles, abstracts, or keywords. A complete listing of these is included in the Supplementary Materials. We note the use of wildcards (bird, avian, ornithol, “bird sound”, birdsong) to retrieve a full set of named interaction-pattern terms used in this review; bird expands to birdwatching, birding, birdwatcher(s), birder(s), birdfeeder(s), bird-feeding, birdsong, and bird-related.

All records identified through database searches were imported into Rayyan for screening, and duplicate records were removed using a combination of manual identification and automation in the Rayyan duplication feature prior to screening. Study selection then followed a multistage process. First, study titles were screened by one of 11 study authors. Screening was completed against the eligibility criteria, and screeners indicated whether each source should be included, excluded, or maybe included. The first author then reviewed all “maybe include” articles and shifted these to one of the other two options (included or excluded). After this, the abstracts passing the title screening were reviewed by one of 11 study authors. Once again, the first author reviewed all “maybe include” options and assigned them to one of the other two options. After this, the lead author attempted to locate the PDFs of texts through institutional publisher subscriptions and publicly available websites.

Exclusion and inclusion criteria

Eligible studies included at least one physical, sensory, or representational interaction pattern with birds that could reasonably be accessed by the general public. By “reasonably accessed by the general public, “ we meant interaction patterns that members of the general public could plausibly enact in everyday life without specialized professional, regulatory, or research-laboratory access. Studies were excluded if they could not reasonably be attributed to birds or birdsong since there were too many other sensory inputs (water, wind, rain, absence of traffic noises), the bird or birdsong was not manipulated or reproduced independently, or the birds or birdsong could not be quantified separately from many other forms of nature contact. Studies focused exclusively on industrial or commercial poultry production, veterinary science, virology, zoonotic disease transmission, avian pathology, or derived products of birds (i.e., feathers, blood, meat) were excluded. Studies were also excluded if birds could not be distinguished from broader nature contact (e.g., time outdoors in nature with no bird-specific measurement), or where birds served solely as biodiversity indicators without any direct human interaction. Studies in which contact with birds was incidental but identifiable (i.e., living in or visiting bird-rich environments where bird presence/diversity was measured) were retained and coded as incidental contact to wild birds. Ultimately, interaction patterns in the review included:

Outdoor recreation activities involving birds (e.g., birdwatching, birding) or that attracted wild birds (i.e., feeding or maintaining feeders);

Incidental contact with wild birds in everyday environments (e.g., living in, working in, visiting bird-rich settings where bird presence or diversity was measured);

Auditory exposure to birds or birdsong (live or via recordings)

Caring for domesticated, companion, captive, or rehabilitated birds;

Participating in bird-related citizen science or education;

Engaging with bird-related media or representations (e.g., apps, video, books, virtual reality);

Bird presence inferred from environmental or secondary data (e.g., biodiversity records linked to participant locations). This category differed from incidental contact (Interaction Pattern #2 above) since the underlying data (e.g., eBird records linked to participant addresses) could not confirm whether participants were aware of or encountered the birds. By contrast, studies coded as incidental contact involved bird presence that was observed, measured, or self-reported by participants.

Eligible studies also reported at least one human health or well-being outcome, broadly defined to include psychological, emotional, cognitive, social, physical, physiological, behavioral, or quality-of-life outcomes. Ecosystem services provided by birds, unlinked to direct interactions with individual people, were also excluded (Wenny et al., 2011). Eligible outcomes must also have been collected and reported in the current study; reviews of other primary sources of information, or claims of benefits without evidence, were excluded.

Data extraction and analysis

A Google Sheet was created by two authors and explained over a Zoom meeting with 11 team members, who assisted with data extraction. Thirteen of the 17 columns in the Google Sheet had drop-down menus for data entry, from which the data extractors could choose. This process was done to limit coding differences between data extractors. All cells had an “other, “ “non-specified, “ or “uncertain” option in the drop-down menu. If data extractors selected this option, they were asked to make a comment in the Google Sheet explaining their choice. The first author reviewed and addressed these comments, making necessary changes to the extracted data.

The data extraction team underwent two phases of calibration to ensure as consistent results as possible between extractors. The first phase included five articles covering a range of study designs (e.g., qualitative, observational, and experimental). After this phase, the drop-down menus were simplified and better explained. A second phase, comprising three articles that also covered a range of study designs, was then conducted, yielding an interrater reliability score of 97.3%. After this phase, each extractor was randomly assigned a set of articles to extract data from. The variables included the following (complete listing of drop-down options presented in the Supplementary Materials): Country; Setting; Study design; Sample age and size; Sampling approach; Interaction type and measurement; Comparator (if any); Outcome(s) and measurement; Timing of outcome (e.g., concurrent with interaction or delayed); Analysis approach; Covariates; Funding sources; and direction/strength of up to seven interaction-outcome pairings. The data were then reported using a narrative approach.

We identified 26, 772 records from the database searches, of which 196 were ultimately included in the review (Figure 1). Studies were conducted either outdoors (N = 79, 41%), indoors (N = 59, 30%), in print or digital media/art/simulations (N = 24, 12%), or a mixture of settings (N = 21, 11%) (Supplementary Table 1). Study designs included experimental (N = 74, 38%), observational cross-sectional studies (N = 75, 38%), observational longitudinal (N = 11, 6%), or natural experiments (N = 1, <1%), or qualitative/mixed methods (N = 33, 17%) (Supplementary Table 2).

Studies were also conducted across wide temporal scales. Studies spanned archeological evidence of human-bird interactions from thousands of years ago (Yeomans and Mazzucato, 2024) to psychiatry case studies in the mid-20 th century (Heron, 1963; Lassen and McConnell, 1977) and current-day social media posts (Barcan and Johnston, 2023; Yin et al., 2023). Analysis of historic bird symbolism in traditional societies was also investigated (Froemming, 2006).

Figure 2 shows the geographic distribution of the studies, spanning 54 countries and six continents. There were concentrations in China (N = 38, 13%), the United Kingdom (N = 35, 12%), and the United States (N = 30, 10%). Additional countries with higher numbers of articles included Germany (N = 18, 6%), Australia (N = 15, 5%), Sweden (N = 12, 4%), and Poland (N = 8, 3%). Six other countries had six studies each (Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Spain), and five other countries had five studies each (Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Switzerland). Notably, there were only six studies in Central or South America and three in Africa.

Sample sizes were reported for 163 (83%) studies (Supplementary Table 3). The total number of participants across all included studies was 1, 176, 846. Sample sizes ranged from 1 to 711, 916 participants, with a median of 198 and a mean of 7, 220. Participant numbers were unavailable for 33 (17%) of the studies.

Ages of participants were reported for 72% of the studies, among which adults were most common (N = 127, 65%) (Supplementary Figure 1). Older adults were studied in 84 studies (43%), adolescents in 23 (12%), and children in 11 (6%). Samples limited to college students were present in 28 studies (14%).

Table 1 presents the interaction types identified in the reviewed studies. The most common type was auditory exposure to birds (N = 44, 22%), followed by incidental contact with wild birds (N = 35, 18%), birds in culture or media (N = 30, 15%), birding or birdwatching (N = 22, 11%), and companion or captive bird interactions (N = 18, 9%). These interactions were most commonly self-reported (N = 78, 40%), with only 33% of studies (N = 64) assigning them to participants (e.g., in experimental study designs). Half (N = 100, 51%) of studies had no control or comparison group.

Table 2 presents the specific outcomes of bird interactions studied. Psychological well-being was the most studied outcome in the reviewed studies (n=81, 41%), followed by mood (n=58, 30%) and nature connectedness (n=37, 19%). Among physiological outcomes, heart rate or heart rate variability was most common (n=15, 8%), and brain activity was measured in nine studies (5%). Nearly two-thirds of studies (n=128, 65%) used validated, self-report measures in surveys to measure outcomes. Nearly one-fifth of studies (n=37, 19%) were qualitative, while one in ten (n=23, 12%) were primarily physiological-focused. Most commonly, benefits associated with interacting with birds were measured immediately after interaction (n=90, 46%), with repeated or longitudinal assessments occurring relatively uncommonly (n=28, 14%).

Figure 3 and Supplementary Table 4 present evidence for positive, mixed/null, or negative outcomes resulting from human-bird interactions. Evidence for beneficial associations and cause-and-effect relationships was overwhelmingly positive: 225 (76.5%) of the associative findings and 179 (85.2%) of the causal findings were positive. Evidence for mixed or null relationships between bird interactions and human outcomes was presented in 31 (14.8%) of the causal findings and 62 (21.1%) of associative findings. Only seven (2.4%) findings found harmful relationships between bird interactions and human outcomes. All of these were examined in association studies; no harmful effects of bird interactions were found in the experimental (cause-and-effect) study designs.

Figure 4 summarizes the evidence for positive associations (or causal relationships) between specific human-bird interactions and benefits. The largest volume of evidence was connections between interactions and mental health and well-being as a result of birding or birdwatching (N = 70 findings), incidental contact with wild birds (N = 48), listening to birdsong (N = 34), viewing birds in the media (N = 24), and companion or therapy birds (N = 13). Listening to birdsong was also linked with cognitive function in 30 cases. Environmental attitudes, behavior, or nature connectedness were associated equally with birds in the media (N = 12), incidental contact (N = 11), and birding or birdwatching (N = 10). Physiological outcomes were most often studied in relation to birdsong (N = 14), while social outcomes were found three times for companion or therapy birds, and birding or birdwatching, respectively. We found little evidence for positive beneficial outcomes from citizen science, feeding wild birds, raising birds, or birds inferred from environmental data, though this may be owing to the paucity of studies on these interaction types.

Our results suggest that there are many potential human health and well-being benefits associated with a diversity of bird-interaction patterns. To reach this premise, we conducted a systematic review of the literature available through November 2025, identifying 196 relevant studies that spanned diverse study designs, geographic distributions, and temporal ranges. Across these studies, mental health and well-being emerged as the most frequently documented outcome domain. The strongest evidence existed for birding or birdwatching, incidental contact with wild birds, and birdsong. Cognitive benefits were also documented, particularly through birdsong. Environmental attitudes, connectedness to nature, and pro-environmental behaviors were linked to birds in media, incidental contact, and birding. Physiological benefits were most consistently associated with birdsong, and social well-being benefits appeared primarily in companion or therapy bird interactions and birding activities. Citizen science participation, feeding wild birds, raising birds, and bird-related environmental data yielded limited evidence of positive health outcomes, likely reflecting a scarcity of studies rather than an absence of benefit.

Our findings support a growing body of systematic reviews supporting the conclusion that human-bird interactions can meaningfully support human health and well-being across psychological, cognitive, physiological, and social domains. Similarly, Gray et al. (2023) reported that bird interactions were associated with positive psychological outcomes in 97 studies and physiological outcomes in 21 studies. Our analysis also identified over 100 studies post-2020, extending the evidence from Andrews et al. (2026) to incorporate the popularity of bird-interaction activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, we extended the review by Camacho-Guzmán et al. (2023) by demonstrating the connections among birds, environmental attitudes/behavior, connectedness to nature, and human health and well-being. Finally, we extended the findings from Béguin et al. (2024) by incorporating studies of interaction types beyond domesticated or therapy birds. The consistency of positive outcomes across these prior and current reviews is strongly suggestive that the presence of birds, independent of context or domestication, is associated with a range of human health and well-being benefits.

Practical implications

These findings have several implications for nature-based therapeutic practices. Across the literature, interactions with birds were consistently associated with positive psychological outcomes, including improved general well-being, enhanced mood, and reductions in stress and anxiety. These findings indicate that bird-related interactions may represent an accessible and adaptable modality within nature-based therapy. Unlike the forms of nature contact that require access to large natural spaces or structured outdoor activities, birds are present in many human-dominated environments (Archer et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2021) and can be incorporated into therapeutic settings with relatively minimal resources.

One of the most frequently studied and consistently beneficial forms of interaction identified in this review was auditory exposure to birdsong. Evidence suggests that even indirect contact with birds may have therapeutic value, for instance, through pre-recorded or livestreamed birdsong or digital access to “smart” bird feeders, water features, and nest boxes. In clinical settings, feeders could be installed outside of office windows or suitable nearby landscapes to attract birds, with access to video and/or audio streams of visiting birds, available indoors as background stimuli during therapy sessions and in waiting rooms/indoor reception and office settings. These forms of human-bird interactions may provide subtle restorative experiences that support emotional regulation and attentional restoration during therapeutic encounters and may facilitate opportunities for interpersonal communication with clinicians and staff around shared observations. At the same time, therapists should recognize that individuals may have varying perceptions of birds, and some species or contexts may evoke discomfort or negative associations (Ratcliffe, 2021). Bird-related interventions should therefore be individualized and implemented with consideration of client preferences, early life exposure, and cultural context, as is beginning to be done with the availability of natural landscapes in virtual reality (McAnirlin et al., 2024a, b, 2026). However, some of this work should acknowledge that attitudes toward videos of birds, for instance, are influenced by human-nature relationships (Yin et al., 2023) such that the potential for entertainment must be separated from the therapeutic potential.

The potential benefits of bird-related interventions may be particularly relevant for older adults and individuals in institutional settings. Reminiscence-based therapeutic approaches, for example, can incorporate nature- and animal-related prompts to stimulate autobiographical memories connected to birds, seasons, or outdoor environments. Bird-related programming may also be beneficial in long-term care facilities and inpatient healthcare environments where direct access to nature is limited and where social isolation and loneliness may impact quality of life (Béguin et al., 2024). Indoor multisensory programs, such as bird-focused activities (e.g., Bird Tales), can allow residents to engage with visual, auditory, and tactile representations of birds and can be facilitated by activity coordinators or care staff without specialized training (Lee et al., 2020). In some settings, a small bird enclosure or aviary in shared spaces may also offer opportunities for regular observation and interaction. Together, these approaches highlight the potential for bird-related interactions to introduce restorative elements of nature into a wide range of therapeutic and care environments.

More broadly, the findings of this review support the emerging field of Ecological Medicine, a model of health that pursues interventions that create reciprocity, relationality, and connectedness among humans, other living biota and the environment (Makhinson et al., 2025). Our results show that interactions with birds overwhelmingly enhance environmental attitudes, which are among the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behaviors (Miller et al., 2022; Hristova et al., 2025). Therefore, our results suggest that future bird therapy initiatives may contribute to a healthier biosphere and, in turn, further improve human health, and that bird interactions meet the criteria for Ecological Medicine interventions.

Research needs

Several recent studies highlight individual-difference and behavioral-spillover moderators that deserve more systematic attention in future intervention work. Tryjanowski et al. (2025) surveyed nearly 400 Polish birders and found that more experienced birders not only ignored but actively enjoyed adverse weather, with experience and motivational profile moderating the relationship between birding and weather conditions. This implies that the well-being effects of birding interventions may depend on participants’ experience, specialization, and motivations, and that practitioners engaging in human-bird intervention for health promotion should not assume a uniform response across novice and experienced participants. Relatedly, Randler et al. (2021) surveyed nearly over 2, 400 birdwatchers and documented “negative social jetlag, “ with birders arising approximately 15 minutes earlier on free days and accumulating roughly 45 minutes of sleep deficit on birding days relative to weekday baselines. To our knowledge this is the only large-sample study documenting the potential impact of birding on sleep, and it implies that future studies of birding should account for sleep chronotypes and timing. Both studies also reinforce a broader point: the need for a better understanding of who benefits, under what conditions, and through what mechanisms.

Future research can extend our findings by exploring remaining questions about the benefits of human-bird interactions. First, the influence of listening to birds on mental health warrants clarification of potential differences among bird species. The sounds of songbirds are typically thought to be more pleasant than those of non-songbirds (Cox and Gaston, 2015), likely due to their acoustic features such as loudness, harmonics, and frequency, as well as familiarity with the sound (Ratcliffe et al., 2018). Most of the studies we reviewed used songbirds as stimuli, focusing on the positive effects of birdsong while not accounting for potentially non-salutary effects from species that produce less pleasant sounds. Future studies can seek more empirical evidence on the salutary properties of bird sounds by using experimental designs that include bird species with varying acoustic features and charismatic traits.

Second, although it fell outside the current review’s scope, a meta-analytic approach to understanding the effectiveness of specific human-bird interactions on human health would be valuable for designing more purposeful interaction patterns. For example, future research could examine the overall effects of various bird-related activities on mental well-being, the most studied outcomes in our review. Comparing the extent to which an activity contributes to well-being will inform programs that involve recreational or therapeutic experiences with birds.

Third, more research attention is needed for emerging types of human-bird interactions and underexplored benefits for social well-being. Citizen sciences for bird conservation and bird handling have been practiced for decades (Şekercioğlu, 2012; Miller-Rushing et al., 2020), yet little research has reported evidence on their impacts on human well-being. Also, although social outcomes of birding, such as connecting with other birders, have been found to be an important motivation for interacting with birds (Randler, 2021), less is known about how wild-bird-related activities may benefit social well-being.

Fourth, the effectiveness and intensity of the influence of interacting with birds may vary across subpopulations with different socio-demographic and cultural characteristics. More research is warranted to engage youth and older populations to understand age-specific effects of human-bird interactions. Cultural backgrounds may also influence perceptions of the benefits of birds, as cultural values of birds can vary across countries (Steven et al., 2017). Understudied cultures in Central and South America and Africa, in particular, deserve research attention to understand the cultural significance of the well-being benefits of human-bird interactions.

Strengths and limitations

This study is, to our knowledge, the first to systematically review the human well-being benefits of various interaction patterns with birds. Additionally, this review offers an expansive view of the benefits associated with physical and media representations of birds, as well as the multiple interactions a human may have with birds. Our review also illustrates, to some extent, humans’ relationship with birds across various temporal scales, including archeological evidence of human-bird interactions, mid-20 th -century case studies, and current-day human-bird interactions.

However, this review has several limitations. First, our search strategy and inclusion criteria were oriented toward studies reporting health or well-being benefits of human-bird interactions. We did not search systematically for adverse outcomes (e.g., zoonosis, vehicle and wildlife collisions, allergens, biophobia or fear-based responses, or sleep shortening). The published literature itself may be biased toward positive outcomes, and therefore, the conclusions of this review also reflective of the available literature rather a more balanced view of all human-bird interactions and their consequences. Second, we searched three databases commonly used for systematic and scoping reviews and comparable to prior reviews on this topic (Gray et al., 2023; Beguin et al., 2024; Andrews et al., 2026), but we acknowledge that this choice may have under-represented studies appearing in regional, non-English, and other journals not indexed in these databases. Furthermore, we excluded articles that could not be reasonably attributed to birds or birdsong, separately from other forms of nature contact or sensory inputs. Many articles gathered during the initial title and abstract screening processes did not disentangle these concepts, leading to some overlooked studies; including them would have made it too difficult to link results to birds or birdsong. We were also unable to extract and synthesize rich or thick descriptions from participant quotes in nearly one-fifth of the studies (n=40, 19%) that included a qualitative component. Our keyword search was conducted in November 2025, and since then, notable papers have emerged, including a comparison of gray matter in the brains of novice and more experienced birders (Wing et al., 2026). Relatedly, we only examined studies available in English, likely overlooking important studies only available in other languages, and may not have captured studies of the full spectrum of negative interactions with birds based on the keywords chosen. Finally, we did not examine potential risks to birds, notably window collisions and Trichomonas, among other parasites (Elmore et al., 2021; Böhm et al., 2025), which must be thoroughly mitigated for the mutual benefit of humans and birds in therapeutic interventions.

This review also did not include a formal risk of bias assessment of the included studies. Such an appraisal would have enabled more of a quality-weighted interpretation of the findings, and its absence means that results from studies of varying methodological rigor carry equal weight in our synthesis. This limitation is shared by other recent reviews examining closely related topics, including Gray et al. (2023), Andrews et al. (2026), Camacho-Guzmán et al. (2023), and Béguin et al. (2024), none of which conducted a formal risk of bias appraisal. The broad heterogeneity of study designs, outcome measures, and bird-interaction types represented in the literature poses genuine challenges for standardized quality appraisal, and the field would benefit from the development of context-sensitive frameworks capable of accommodating this methodological diversity in future reviews.