I’m really curious about this question. Because some of my friend always say that they develop a boring hobby. So why they think it’s boring, but still insist on it?????
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Bird watching. When you're young you see older people with seed nests to attract birds and shit, I thought that was the most boring fucking shit I've ever seen.
But someone gifted me one of those bird attracting stations with a camera mounted on it so an app can tell you what species of bird lands on it and eats some of the seeds. That shit is fucking addicting man. And you start recognizing your local birds because they become habituated to coming around your place and eating from you. Sometimes I see a couple land on it at the same time and take nibbles at it.
Something about it man. I can just sit there and watch them all fucking day, if I didn't have work.
The main bird person I knew growing up was my mother, so I just always associated bird watching with women and assumed it was an extremely feminine hobby. As a cis-het male sexual tyrannosaurus, I just wasn't interested.
Last year, I bought my first set of binoculars for a trip to Alaska and decided to test it out looking at birds around my neighborhood. That's when I had this epic realization that bird watching is kind of like hunting without the killing part, which should have had obvious appeal to me all along. I happen to like target shooting but have no interest whatsoever in hunting because I just have no need or desire to hunt for my own resources, and I find hunting for recreation to be morally questionable (for me, not others; I acknowledge that the decision is more nuanced for many others).
Bird watching is a bit like IRL Pokémon Go. I totally get the appeal now. I still don't do it, as I have other hobbies, but I at least get it.
Love the Pokemon Go analogy.
Bird watching makes me look like a crazy person unless there is two of us. Like the time a random woman and I both walked up to a bush to stand still and look for whoever was making the beautiful song from it. Neither of us could find the bird but we both were surprised by the beauty of it's melody. But, as my bird watching tour guide in Costa Rica said "ugly bird=beautiful song; beautiful bird=horrible squack", we probably didn't miss much without the visual. Who knows?!
Bird watching is the best.