Long before his days as Boromir, and Ned Stark, and Macbeth, the English actor Sean Bean turned his head to the sky as a young schoolboy and discovered his love of birds.“If I feel a bit stressed out, I go out in the garden, I just spend some time puttering around … you feel much more relaxed, more open to things,” Bean told me in a video interview. “That’s why I think it’s so important —apart from the beauty of birds and their habits and their characteristics — I think it’s so good for human beings to be able to get out there and watch them.”Although Bean’s life on set and as an often-traveling actor doesn’t always allow ample time for bird-watching, it’s something he consistently comes back to, no matter where he lives: “I’d always keep that interest in feeding the birds and watching out for them.”Bean has found himself once again out in the field. He recently narrated the documentary Osprey: Sea Raptor, and this year he became the host of the popular British birding podcast Get Birding. The charm of the podcast lies in how astonishingly unintimidating it makes birding seem. From his garden, Bean and the array of experts and guests who appear on the show muse about their days spent bird-watching with giddy, infectious enthusiasm. Bean remains delighted by the routines and habits of birds and stays decidedly unfussy about birding, bound to the type of minimalism that prizes being outside with his Barbour cap and binoculars above all else.Bean wants everyone to know that birding can be done from anywhere, by anyone. One doesn’t even need to leave the house, he said, recalling the flock of songbirds that momentarily lifted his spirits during the early days of pandemic lockdowns.“It’s like a dawn chorus when you wake up sometimes, especially in spring, and the weather’s just starting to get nice, and birds are starting to nest,” he said. “We’re so lucky to have this around us for free — for nothing — and it comes back every year.”You don’t need to be in the country to find a great bird show, though. Although Bean grew up with easy access to lush birding terrain, he has done most of his birding from his garden, even during his time living in the middle of London. There’s a good chance that you can observe a diverse fleet of birds in your immediate surroundings, no matter where you happen to find yourself, including in New York City, where roughly 400 species of birds reside.“You’ve got peregrine falcons, haven’t you?” Bean asked me. (We do.)A longtime bird nerd myself, I spoke with Bean about his many years of diligently searching his surroundings for birds, as well as his advice for how you too can get into birding.