Jon Young (1)

Month of March 2022 - Nature

I purchased this ebook for $1.99 three years ago, in 2019. Now is the time to read it as the robins will be passing through in the next week or two. They will hang around for about one week, then disappear. I won’t see another robin here on Hoo Hoo Acres until next year.

The title of the book may be a little misleading. You won’t find out much about the robin. But, you will learn a LOT about bird language, and that’s really what this book is all about. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the audios included throughout the ebook of the various types of bird calls.

Although they are listed together as well in one place in the back, in the Appendix, I feel he should have listed them in alphabetical order. Also, just as the author was driven to know the kind of bird singing, I want to know as well. A picture of the songbird next to each audio provided would have brought this ebook over the top, especially for beginners. Otherwise, you are left Googling the images on a separate device, or scouring through a bird book.

Birdwatching isn’t just about seeing one and checking it off your checklist, although, I love that idea too. It’s about learning to hear what the birds are saying. It is important to connect with them, after all, you have to get the birds permission to see other animals…such as deer. You go plowing through the woods and scare a bunch of birds, they will take flight, or give warning calls to all other animals around.

The reversal could also be true. A bear or wildcat could be traipsing through the woods toward you. If you know bird language, you could be well informed ahead of time.

The natives were well in-tuned with bird language, and in times of war, especially against the whites, they could tell where their enemies were, even a mile away by the birds flight reactions and language.

BIRDWATCHING TIPS

Find a “sit spot”. A place to go and just sit and listen. Go often, everyday for at least 20 min (this is how long it takes birds to get back to business once disturbed by your presence), or up to 40 min is best. Make it CONVENIENT! Not far from your front door. Can create it by placing bird feeders and birdbaths around your yard, or simply select a place near the woods.

My sit spot is the swing on my front porch where I can watch the birds and the squirrels interacting with each other underneath the live oak tree, but I now want to create a couple more sit spots: one watching the coop, where I see and hear a lot of bird activity…besides the chickens…and one near the woods to see if I can connect and figure out what goes on there.

Understanding baselines: Bird territories (15 to 50 feet), What “should” be happening in trees from dawn to morning bustle, weather conditions, approaching predators, migrating, mating, nesting, feeding habits, etc…

The object is to recognize a “baseline symphony”, the daily routine, of nature sounds in birds. The bird language sounds are all explained in this book. The different sounds to listen for:

1. Songs
2. Companion calls
3. Territorial aggression (male to male normally)
4. Adolescent begging
5. Alarms

NOTE: Before heading out to sit spot or your walk to sit spot, start emptying your mind of everything except awareness. Walk softly to your sit spot. Do not stomp noisily into your area. Glide, do not bounce into area. Small slow steps like a Fox. And do not fidget once you sit. Be still! This is the way of the Sans, a native tribe of Africa.

KEEP A JOURNAL

To learn quicker, jot everything you perceive in a journal every 10 minutes…

1. SEE: Learn to see like the owl. Focus on one thing, and using your peripheral vision see around that item…above, below, right, left. Then focus on another spot, repeat
2. LISTEN: Listen more to the “silence”, not just to the sounds up close, to hear the quieter birds, companion calls…planes, winds through the brush, branches, the grass or through all of it at the same time.
3. FEEL: What do you feel? Sitting on the ground, the wind, wet, cold, hot, sun on skin, etc…
4. SMELL: Smell the air around you. What do you smell? Earth, pollution, dog shit, sewer, rotting leaves, etc…

It seems incredibly difficult to learn the sounds from different birds because so many do sound the same to me. But, I have learned three things since reading this book:

1) There’s a beautiful black and white chickadee that feeds at my feeder,
2) It’s the chickadee’s song that I’ve learned and have been imitating for many years in summer for the past several years while sitting out on the front porch, and
3) I recognized a “bullet” flight with a lot of birds chip, chip, chipping their alarm as they bolted away from the live oak tree and from their prey…me. There were about 30 birds, mostly assorted sparrows, sitting in the live oak off my front porch that I didn’t even know were there. They were in “silence” alarm as I picked up a couple of twigs. When I walked underneath the tree, bully style, they bulleted out of there, straight to the other live oak.… (more)

In some ways very accessible; for example how he uses his own real-life experiences to illustrate most (all?) of the things he is trying to explain, and providing drawings to show the different movements birds may make. In other ways this book was out of my league because I'm so new to bird watching - I only know 3 or 4 of the birds he talked about!

Even for a newbie like me there was good stuff to absorb, especially about one's conduct when moving through an environment. N and I have often complained that Germany seems to have a dearth of birds and mammals in her woods, but now that I've read about the bird plow I can see the truth of the matter. After reading the book I now understand the concept of bird language, and using the Appendix's practical suggestions I've formed a plan on how to proceed from here. I think that after making some progress on identifying bird calls I'll come back to this book, and I expect I'll find much more of the author's advice and observations useful and meaningful.… (more)