This paper probes the political and cultural roles of birds in people’s cultivation of environmentalist dispositions and stewardship. In Turkey, birds have become the forefront of environmentalist grassroots movements against mega-projects and urban infrastructure expansion—from threatened urban parks to power plants, bridges and roadways, and wetland drainage schemes. What are the ways in which birds have become symbols of environmental stewardship? How do birders make sense of changing and threatened environments? And how are birds themselves implicated in environmental change? This paper draws from my anthropological and ethnographic research in Turkey to interrogate the varied connections between bird-watching and environmentalism. It argues that field activities like bird identification, bird counts, and compiling bird population data are central social settings for the formation of environmentalist ethics and socialites amongst middle-class Turkish citizens. In the field, birders learn to make sense of place in particular ways, and this place-making is formed in encounters with rural residents and hunters, and shaped by conflict and collaboration with state officials. However, these environmentalist ethics are also contested, as different social groups produce different assessments of environmental change. These contrasting environmental politics take form and are expressed in everyday practices and assessments about birds’ habitats, livelihoods, and migratory routes.