Listening to the songs of rare birds, admiring their colorful feathers and soaking in the peaceful sounds of nature can be an indoor activity, too.

This bird migration season, set down the binoculars for a moment and open up the Wingspan board game (Stonemaier Games, $59).

The game — playable on your iPhone or tablet ($10) or the good old-fashioned way, spread out on the dining room table — was made for birders. Featuring fun bird facts, an addictive game design and hundreds of majestic bird illustrations by Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez, Wingspan can make a birder out of anybody.

“The enthusiasm from the birding community was perhaps the biggest surprise after releasing Wingspan,” says Stonemaier Games co-founder Jamey Stegmaier. “I had certainly hoped that birders would give the game a chance, but I wasn’t sure how many actually would.”

The answer: Some 2 million copies have been sold around the world in 30 different languages.

Oakland resident Michelle Stevens, a member — along with 1,600 other game lovers — of Dublin’s East Bay Board Gang, had little interest in birds until a family member introduced her to Wingspan when it first came out. Six years later, she finds herself identifying birds out in the wild.

“It’s a very cool outcome,” she says.

Why is this game giving ordinary folks a sudden bird obsession? Stegmaier says it’s the artwork, the simplicity of the rules — it takes about an hour to play — and the variety of play and strategy.

“It’s one of the most popular games we have here,” says Rory Drewfus, event coordinator at Victory Point Café, a board game hangout in Berkeley.

And someone usually brings a copy to East Bay Board Gang get-togethers, says club founder David M. Williamson. “It’s a great game with tons of replayability,” he says.

It looks beautiful, too. The game boards depict bird habitats. The dice, adorned with a different bird food on each side, tumble through a bird feeder instead of being rolled. Rather than scoring points with tokens, players use bird eggs. The artists spend 10 hours or more on each bird card — the base game has 170, Stegmaier says, with expansions offering hundreds more. And the phone app not only plays bird sounds when you pull up a card, there’s a steady stream of enjoyable chirping in the soft background music.

Some people buy Wingspan just for the art.

“Not everyone who owns Wingspan actually plays it,” Stegmaier says. “Sometimes the cards are used for bird walks.”

More >> Looking for someone to play with? The East Bay Board Gang meets every other Tuesday in Dublin; www.meetup.com/east-bay-board-gamers/. Victory Point Café is open daily at 1797 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley; www.victorypointcafe.com.