BIRD WATCHING IN ONTARIO

ii While bird watching has captured the attention of those interested in fostering an experiential connection to the more-than-human, research conducted to date often assumes birding to be a heterogeneous act. As an example of free-choice learning, this work positions birding as a kind of environmental education, thus opening this popular activity to analysis missing from the literature thus far. Rather than a singular act, this investigation sees birding as a multiple, ontological object. As a result, the practices of field birding, backyard birding and bird rescue were studied with the goal of describing the relationship between practices and birders ‘ perspectives of and relationships with wild birds. Influenced by actor-network theory, a method assemblage was developed using multiple sources of data, including: semi-structured interviews analysed using a modified grounded theory approach; field journals analysed with a naturalist autoethnography lens; and photographs analysed using