We are receiving a wake-up call. The virus is sending us a message:
STOP !
Time to hit the PAUSE button.
RETHINK relationships.
Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon
We are being given the opportunity to rediscover the kinship between us and other species. Especially during these unprecedented times, interpretive coaching can assist the strengthening of a natural relationship with all species that share the earth. One of our roles as interpreters, is to help people figure out how to decode our mutually common language with the earth’s inhabitants. So, when people go out for their social distanced walk, we as interpreters need to be reminding them about something:
Your senses- don't leave home without them.
Jon Young, author of What the Robin Knows, strongly believes that birds are the best mentors to unlock the outdoor nature-based conversations. The only talent you require is awareness and motivated practice. You do need to also bring along a respectful attitude to allow close encounters with wildlife (binoculars help too).
“When we train ourselves to listen to the birds…when we ‘lose our minds’ and ‘come to our senses’… the texting, emailing, twittering mind will eventually quiet down.”
By sharing his tips on improving our eye opening and ear opening skills, he shows us how to access the world of birds through what he calls deep bird language. He considers deep bird language a multidimensional full contact sport that will allow us to see more wildlife. The main idea is not just to hear birds but to hear everything.
Stop walking with arrogance
Jon mentions that the awareness required to understand and connect with birds changed his life. It allowed him to connect with his deepest instincts and to stop walking in the woods with arrogance and in a state of self absorption. I can relate to doing this on occasion and I certainly observe this behaviour in many park visitors. The benefits are there not only for the novice but also for the experienced birder. As a birdwatcher already myself, Jon has added a whole new dimension to my avian observations.
Sparking a connection with the subject is the primary goal; the learning follows. This philosophy is at the heart of EID’ s work. The learning is in the questioning and the doing. This book aims to provide the behavioural doing tips, along with some tools for asking the right questions. This allows you to uncover the answers the birds have been providing all along. In true interpretive style Jon is careful at not providing answers forthright but presenting the guidelines for your own discovery.
So, what happens? We rebuild habits of perception buried within all of us. This allows us to open up to an often, ignored world and add an interesting dimension to our backyard or neighbourhood walk. This guidebook walks one through how to rediscover the instinct we all have of bird tracking. The greatest teachers he says are the species you see every day, like robins. Robins, from his experience, are often the real gatekeepers to approaching other wildlife unobtrusively.
Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon
Birds’ language is loaded with meaning if we pay attention, and Jon provides the methods to still the chatter, quiet the mind, and practice the routine of invisibility. It may a sound a bit mystical at first, but the approach is very practical, coming from an indigenous & scientific viewpoint. You are trying to minimize the ripples, waves, and concentric rings of disturbance that propagate in all directions when humans blindly charge off on a walk or stride boldly into their backyard. This movement pretty well guarantees the comment, “I didn’t see any wildlife.”
Shrink the sphere of disturbance
When our disturbance exceeds our awareness in size and scope, we cause a wake of disturbance around us seeing little. Tied to this signature wake is what Jon refers to as the bird plow. To reverse this effect you want to aim for awareness growing larger than disturbance. He expands on techniques for sensory expansion using owl vision, deer hearing, and raccoon touching while one also practices a gliding versus bouncing gait and fox walking with the use of shorter, softer steps versus the normal swing and stomp method.
Having close encounters with animals is not random. Bird alarm calls give all wildlife advance warning. As Jon says, if you want to see animals, you have to ask permission from the birds first. Jon talks about the attitude of respect when walking and the need to pause frequently when moving in a relaxed manner, to replace collision with connection. He has found that all birds have a species-specific tension sequence, some of them being hard for us to differentiate before explosive flight. The book is full of practical examples to reduce this tension like turning away techniques using the honouring routine. Trying this with a red squirrel will provide an endless challenge.
Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon
Law of the Land: Disturb one, Disturb all
A bird’s last resort is the cry of alarm. To survive, birds have to know where and what danger is, along with a plan to avoid it quickly and quietly, with minimal energy expenditure. Heeding alarm calls for prey species is a good strategy not just for their own family, species or us, for that matter, but for all wildlife. Birds are prey species and are always on the lookout for dangerous situations and signs of trouble. You need to place yourself into this perspective. Over time, within a given habitat, one can organize birds, based on their alarm reactions, along a shy-to-bold scale.
Their pre-alarm call evasive reactions have a distinctive shape based on the specific kind of aerial or land - based threat involved. Categorized by Young, there are twelve kinds to be on the lookout for like: bird plow, sentinel, popcorn and parabolic for example. What demands practice is the recognition of these occurrences and your avoiding being the stimulus that creates them.
“The birds’ wisdom is their awareness and their awareness, is their wisdom.”
Alarm calls, however are just one of 5 key vocalizations by birds. Their knowledge can add layers of enjoyment to your getting to know your neighbours. Alarm calls are similar phonetically to what is known as the companion call but exaggerated in speed and intensity, and accentuated by the landscape position and body language. Here is a summary of these five so you can get a sense of what to listen for (with apologies to those who dislike anthropomorphic frivolity):
Songs proclaims territory indicating fitness level (to males) and knowledge of hiding places, safe roosts, best escape and avoidance strategies/routes (to females); “These are my home boundaries and I will defend them so keep movin’ on buddy,” OR “I have lots of energy to put the best tasting grubs on the nest table and to protect you and our children from predators.”
Companion Calls sweetest and most calming, indicating well being; “All is good my darling, and you ARE looking ravishing today.”
Territorial aggression calls minimize all- out fighting by posturing and warning; “If you step one foot closer, I'll drill the nape feathers off your head.”
·Adolescent begging is an indicator of hunger; ” I WANT MY FOOD AND I WANT IT NOW”
Alarm calls surprised panic due to predator danger; “Holy S__T, Robin. Escape to the Birdcave.”
Audio files have been produced as a companion to the book having representative vocalizations from robin whinnies to chipmunk alarms. They can be found at birdlanguage.com
Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon
The delightful thing is you will never exhaust the subject. The lifelong learning curve is very appealing.
Jon recites a story about a San bushman at the beginning and end of the book to cement a thought in the reader’s mind. I have paraphrased it like this:
If I see a small bird and recognise it, a thin thread will form between me and that bird. If I just see it and don’t recognize it then a thread does not form. If I see and really recognize that same individual again the thread will thicken. Every time I see and recognize that bird the thread strengthens. Eventually it grows into a string, then a cord and finally a rope. We make ropes with all aspects of creation.
Jon shares with us the sweet feeling he senses when he is accepted not as a predator, an intruder or a stranger but a neighbor. The learning benefits of watching an individual on a regular basis more intently are that you’ll get to become familiar with his or her habits. Just like a human neighbour I find myself offering a verbal greeting to my feathered friends when on a walk. This provides me with a sense of something- a good feeling- camaraderie?
Listen farther than you can see
It is all about building a connection with other living beings, and to appreciate them not as a species but as an individual. Jon emphasizes finding a comfortable place to sit down for around 30-40 minutes to allow everything to settle in. He calls this a sit spot, and sees it as the key to a natural relationship.
“ A sit spot is the heart and soul of bird language, practice room and concert hall, raw canvas and glorious museum.”
This is a time to really learn to listen to the silence, so one can hear more of everything else. We need to listen farther than we can see. The main idea is not necessarily to hear birds but to hear everything. Jon combines this with journal writing to record impressions and questions. He uses arrows to depict movements.
Photo: Jon Heller
This approach by Mr. Young brought back extremely pleasant memories for me of participating in a solitude enhancing activity called magic spots as well as being immersed in an Earthwalk sensory awareness activity called symphony. Participants were set up to focus on sounds and record them not by identifying who made the sounds but simply by capturing the acoustic essence like volume, speed, pattern and tonal elements being heard. I never knew the wind had so many nuanced sounds.
This occurred during the 70’s in an ACClimatization Experiences Institute outdoor camp workshop. That Institute has morphed into the present- day Institute for Earth Education. Their Earthwalks; an alternative nature experience book describes the wonderful activity called symphony (among many others).
You have really had a strong hit of natural history content in this post so I would be remiss to not include some cultural history. Art and science are not strange bedfellows but great reinforcers of community inspiration.
Brighten Your Community
The National Audubon Society has a wonderful project called the Audubon Mural Project where they have matched sponsored money with artists to complete murals of climate-threatened birds using urban walls as a stark reminder of the birds that once lived in cities—and might yet again with the restoration of habitats. It started by brightening up the urban environment throughout John James Audubon's old Harlem‐based neighborhood in New York City with an amazing range of creativity.
Not just walls were used as canvases but a variety of surfaces from metal security store shutters to chain link fence to bridge panels were commandeered. BTW, the images in this post promote the Audubon Mural project and have all come from their website https://www.audubon.org/amp
One street artist called ATM, has a video which captures the essence of the project and explains his process of matching the chosen bird to the surface contours. https://www.audubon.org/news/townsends-warbler-atm
Photo: Mike Fernandez/Audubon
Might there be an opportunity to brighten your neighbouring community to profile threatened birdlife and raise awareness of your centre? Go for it !
For those more culturally inclined readers who have got this far, then I add for your pleasure what the Getty Museum has done to lighten the isolation load.