You may be familiar with the various memes detailing the fact that once you reach middle age, you’re automatically sorted, Harry Potter hat-style, into one of a handful of hobbies, such as sourdough bread making, gardening, or bird-watching. I can’t contradict this, since I’m a middle-aged person who got sorted into bird-watching. But I do know that enjoying birds and their various activities is fun for all ages. Birds are beautiful, interesting, and unpredictable, and it’s fascinating to keep a running life list of all the birds you’ve seen and hope to see in your lifetime.
Whether someone you know is in their bird-watching phase, preparing for this phase, or has been in it for decades, all of these unique gifts—for traveling bird-watchers and backyard bird enthusiasts alike—are things either I or another bird-loving Reviews team member tested, was gifted, or bought IRL and enjoyed.
For more specific equipment recommendations, check out our guides to the Best Smart Bird Feeders and the Best Binoculars. For other gift ideas, check out all our gift guide coverage, including the Best White Elephant Gifts, Best Gifts for Men, and Best Viral TikTok Gifts.
Updated September 2026: I added a birdseed subscription and a puzzle, and ensured links and prices are up to date.
Featured Gifts
Our Favorite Smart Bird Feeder
Netvue
Birdfy Lite Smart Bird Feeder
If you love birds, nothing beats seeing them up close and personal, conducting all their birdy activities. I have learned more about birds in the past two years of testing smart bird feeders than I have over my entire lifetime, such as the fact that cowbirds will lay their eggs in other birds’ nests (such as juncos) and the “host” birds will raise the cowbird chicks as their own, even if they look nothing alike. Or that jays and other corvids are scatter-hoarders and will spend an entire day picking nuts out of a feeder’s seed mix to hide caches around the yard. There are many smart seed feeders on the market, but Birdfy’s high-quality basic model (available with a blue or yellow roof) stands out for its balance of price, features, reliability, and usability without a subscription, making it a great gift option that I have personally given.
A Family Pick
My mom gifted this to my family about 10 years ago, and to this day, it is the single most-played and most-enjoyed game we have ever owned, in any genre. Shuffle the small cards and call them out; players place a blue cardstock square on their bingo card if they have that bird. My son loved it, his friends loved it, neighbors loved it, extended family loved it—it can be played by up to six people at a time, and is suitable for all ages. No reading or parsing of rules required. Best of all, neither my husband nor I minded playing it multiple times a day for years on end (a bonus feature important for any parent of young kids).
For Beginning Birders
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Bushnell
Powerview 2 8×21 Binoculars
Experienced birders probably already have a decent set of binoculars, but for the birding-curious, kids, or someone just starting out, quality binoculars and a life list journal ($22) would make a great gift. WIRED contributing reviewer Caramel Quin declared these the Best Budget Binoculars. I bought a set for each member of my family for a cruise to Alaska last summer, and I’m glad I did. They’re lightweight (7.2 ounces) yet sturdy, with an aluminum casing instead of plastic, and small enough to slip into a pocket if you’ll be hiking and don’t want to deal with them around your neck.
A Customized Bird Seed Subscription
The Happy Birdwatcher Co.
HappySeed Box
The one thing a bird-watcher could always use more of is seed, and this service offers a fun spin on what would otherwise be a boring gift. You can choose either a subscription or a one-time purchase of three boxes: The Starter consists of one 10-pound bag of seed custom-blended to appeal to birds in your recipient’s zip code. The Simply Seeds (pictured above) adds a 5-pound bag of a specialty blend (I received a fruit and nut mix), and the Splendid tacks on suet and mealworms. The blend for my yard—black-oil sunflower seeds, peanut splits, safflower, and millet—was spot-on; birds loved it so much there was little to no mess. (Though you can also specifically opt for No Waste, Hot Pepper, and No Starling versions of your blend.) Each box comes with a personalized letter from founder Susan Vandergriff about which birds to look out for in your area. This latter part needs a bit of fine-tuning, as my letter featured blue jays and summer tanagers, neither of which exist in my region, but I found the whole package charming nonetheless.
A Bird Nerd Classic
David Allen Sibley
“What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why”
This 8- by 11-inch hardcover by famed ornithologist David Sibley (known for his Sibley field guides) may be too big and too heavy to fit in a backpack for field reading, but it remains the definitive source for interesting bird facts. Did you know mallard nestlings have only a 15 percent chance of fledging, and that once they hatch, fewer than half of ducklings survive? And that jays in the Northeastern US often eat paint chips in search of calcium, which doesn’t occur naturally in that region’s soil? Or that chickadees specifically seek out spiders to feed their young for the first week after they hatch, as spiders are high in taurine? Whether you want to or not, you will learn all these things and more if you give someone close to you this book.
A Different Kind of Bird Food
My husband and I received this feeder basket and some suet cakes as a gift about 10 years ago. The basket has fallen on the ground countless times; been chewed on and used as gymnastics equipment by squirrels; and survived windstorms, snow, and pretty much everything Pacific Northwest winters have to offer. Sure, looks-wise, it’s seen better days, but it still does the job.
Suet—beef fat, if we’re being explicit; the solid-form cousin to rendered tallow—attracts a different variety of birds than seeds, primarily insect-eaters like woodpeckers and bushtits. It tends to melt and go rancid in the heat, so I like the melt-free hot pepper variety, which can be used year-round and has been deemed unpalatable by our neighborhood squirrels.
Camera Lenses for Your Phone
Phone cameras keep getting better, but photos taken with that tiny lens aren’t going to win you any awards. If you want more detailed and dramatic photos from your birdwatching expeditions but don’t want to schlep a full camera setup around, try a professional-grade phone lens. WIRED reviewer Julian Chokkattu has tested several of these from Moment and recommends the 1.33X Anamorphic Lens for cinematic video, the 10X Macro Mobile Lens for close-ups, and the 14-mm Fisheye Mobile Lens for fun.
To use these lenses, you’ll need a Moment Phone Case (available for recent iPhones) and, if you have an iPhone, the $5 drop-in lens mount in order to screw the lenses into the case. You will also want to use Moment’s Pro Camera app, and Julian recommends this filter, which can help cut glare from bodies of water and shoot long exposures. Note that Julian doesn’t recommend buying these lenses if you have a Google Pixel or Samsung phone, as Moment seems to have stopped making cases for Android.
The Ultimate Bird Poster
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Pop Chart Lab
Birds of North America Poster
If you’ve ever wondered how many birds live in North America, this poster displays all 740 of them in one chart, both native and non-native, arranged by size and order. It’s educational and a surefire conversation starter. In fact, I’ve had this chart framed in my home’s entryway for almost eight years, and I don’t think a single person has visited my house for the first time and not commented on it, regardless of their ornithological interest level. It’s really fascinating in person, and even if your giftee is already well-versed in birds, they’ll probably still learn something new.
For Birders Who Love Adventure
Jonathan C. Slaght
“Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl”
Until reading this book, I had never heard of Blakiston’s fish owl. And apparently neither had the author, bird-watcher and biologist Jonathan Slaght, until he caught sight of one—the world’s largest living owl. What followed was a five-year passion project to catalog the owl in a remote region of eastern Russia. Part travel adventure, part scientific study, part memoir, this much-lauded nonfiction book reads like a novel and will be a page-turner for anyone who enjoys birds, exploration, or the outdoors.
Make Your Existing Bird Feeder Smart
If your recipient has an existing bird feeder they like, or a seasonal nesting site somewhere around their home or property, they might love a stand-alone bird camera. This one is the best I’ve tested, compatible with both 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz Wi-Fi networks. The cute green owl face streams 4K HD video and pushes 1080p pics to the Hibird app. There’s access to AI identification (which I found to be just OK), livestreaming, and Hibird’s “Dr. Bird” ChatGPT-like help feature, which allows you to ask bird-related questions. (I didn’t find it to be particularly helpful, but YMMV.)
The auxiliary solar panel can be mounted separately, or you can just take the camera inside to charge when the battery runs out, as I did—the battery lasts at least several weeks. The camera comes with a bracket and bendable arm for precise positioning, or you can jury-rig a custom solution. No subscription is needed, though a Hibird rep says that may change in the future.
For Bird-Loving Gamers
Courtesy of Stonemaier Games
WIRED reviewer Simon Hill, our staff board game aficionado, says this award-winning card-driven game will appeal to anyone interested in birds, as it pairs strategy with plenty of educational information about different bird species. It can feel complex at first, so it’s probably best for families with kids older than 10, but once you get the hang of it, it can be addictive. (Up to five people can play, but you can also play solo.) Playing time is 40 to 70 minutes.
A Smart Birdhouse
Contrary to popular belief, birds don’t always sleep in birdhouses. Some cavity-nesting birds may use them for shelter during inclement weather, but where I live on the West Coast, birdhouses are primarily used for nesting, which happens during the spring. This is not my first go-round with a smart birdhouse; I tested the interestingly shaped Birdfy Polygon last year, which did not attract any birds then, and this year it kept going offline. As an alternative, I tried Birdfy’s newer Nest Duo, which has two 2-MP cameras, one facing the entrance and one tucked discreetly inside. This one worked perfectly, both connection-wise and in terms of bird interest—mine raised a family of black-capped chickadees, and seeing their activity on the Birdfy app each day has been the most fun bird-watching experience I have ever had.
Become a More Observant Naturalist
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Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
John Muir Laws
The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling
In his guide to Gifts for Hikers, Backpackers, and Outdoorsy People, WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson said he loved this book by John Muir Laws (no relation to the famed naturalist John Muir) so much that it changed the way both he and his kids looked at the world, allowing them to see a level of detail they’d never noticed before. You don’t even have to be an artist to appreciate this one, as it’s more about the art of observation. He recommends including these pens with the book, which I have also owned in the past and love.
A Perfect Puzzle
Nautilus Puzzles
The Parliament of Fowls Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle
If you’re a puzzle enthusiast and haven’t yet tried wooden jigsaw puzzles, you must. My go-to brand is Liberty Puzzles—the quality and designs are truly unmatched—but California-based Nautilus Puzzles is a close second. Especially appealing is Nautilus’ Parliament of Fowls, a visual interpretation of the 14th-century Chaucer poem. Though it’s only 511 pieces, they are all individually shaped, many with a bird theme, which makes this puzzle both beautiful and extremely challenging.
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