– Preschool participant at Stretch the Imagination

For the past six years, our friends at Stretch the Imagination Preschool in San Francisco have been bringing nature into the preschool experience, by bringing early learners outside to engage with nature through all of their senses.

BirdLanguage.com contributor Josh Lane interviewed preschool founder Michelle Lawton to find out how she’s adapted the core routines of bird language for a younger audience, and to hear highlights on what she’s discovered about best practices in doing this from the past six years.

Josh Lane: Hi Michelle! How did you get started with bringing bird language into your program?

Michelle Lawton: We realized how important it is developmentally to provide children with a sense of timeless exploration and play in nature, so we started creating regular opportunities for our classes to experience the nearby outdoor areas.

We would bring nature back indoors with us by filling the learning space with the images and sounds of the local naturescape. We started weaving nature into our curriculum by encouraging each child to adopt long-term projects with natural components; some of the projects have included making a field guide to the trees in the park; helping plant trees with the forestry department; and making a field guide of birds and animals in the Presidio. All of this naturally kept building momentum, and we started seeking other ways to deepen the nature connection process.

This led us to bring Jon Young (author of What the Robin Knows) to do a bird language training with our staff; Jon opened us to a totally different awareness of the world and what’s possible with nature connection.

Jon Young sharing stories at a Presidio bird language event. Photo by James Cacciatore.

We also later brought Jon in again to offer a training just for a parents, so that they could experience the depth of connection-based mentoring. This helped our parents to understand the deeper value of outdoor exploration and mentoring, which added another crucial layer of support and enthusiasm for the children’s’ nature connection journey.

Josh: What are some ways that you began sharing these connection processes with your students?

Michelle: We start at first in the classroom by sharing stories about nature. Children will get very excited and interested in a topic through a story; we take longer tales that are usually meant for older children and paraphrase them, and use this to create context for their nature connection journey. Stories provide powerful role models, and they build curiosity around a topic which will lead to deeper exploration.

Each age group has different needs, both for building context, and also when in the field. We first have a group get used to going out and exploring the forest together. We build a routine around this each week over a couple of months. We also provide opportunities to look in field guides together in the classroom, and we weave nature into our gratitude practice when we start or finish the day.

We might start with a 30 second or 1 minute period of observation, asking “Notice what you see when you first sit down” and then “Close your eyes… what do you hear?”

A bird sit in action.

As we begin introducing bird language, we’ll split into teacher or helper-led small groups. Each group will adopt its own spot to sit and observe the landscape. Our 3-5 year olds sit weekly; bird observation sits at this age are pretty short in duration. We might start with a 30 second or 1 minute period of observation, asking them “Notice what you see when you first sit down” and then “Close your eyes… what do you hear?”

We gradually build towards 3 consecutive observation periods. Like you do for adults at the Bird Language Intensive, we instruct everyone to listen for us making coyote howls to help identify each period of time.

In this case, we’ll say ”Close your eyes and listen when you hear the first coyote howl, and then open them and return to the large group when you hear the second coyote howl.”

Then the groups gather back up and we’ll ask what they noticed. Depending on the time of day, we might also encourage the children to draw in their journals.

Photo by Jocelyn Knight.

Josh: What kind of response have you noticed from adopting this routine?

Michelle: The kids really love it. They get so fascinated by learning about the birds; they like that they can often see the same birds week after week, and over time they learn all about them. The time in nature really nourishes the children. We’ve actually had parents get upset when their kids graduate, because they’re going to miss their bird language sits.

Josh: What are some field techniques that you especially like for helping younger children tune into the birds?

Michelle: In the field, we use verbal cues to help children focus on experiencing their senses and various natural patterns. We might ask, “Close your eyes… what do you hear right now?”.

Or, we often use a technique called broadcasting, in which we speak to what we perceive the child might be noticing in that moment, which helps them put language onto their experiences. For instance, we might say “Oh, are you seeing that hummingbird perched on the branch? wow, there’s so many colors on the feathers in the sunlight. What do you notice about the hummingbird? What do you think about that?”

This role modeling of observation skills helps build specific connections over time, which builds relationship with that bird and that place. After doing this in the same place week, the children have had many quality interactions with that hummingbird, and with that tree the hummingbird perches on.

Josh: Are there any resources you recommend for others looking to do this?

Michelle: For educators, definitely Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature. We use a number of activities from that book, and our staff often relies on it. Coyote’s Guide is the best resource any educator can have! We also love David Sobel’s Design Principles for Educators. Richard Louv’s books, including Last Child in the Woods, and The Nature Principle, are essential.

For the children, we love to paraphrase and re-tell stories like My Side of the Mountain. Pond, by Jim LaMarche, is an excellent story that models respect for nature and the power of how people can positively nurture the earth. Elsa Beskow’s Children of the Forest is a treat for the imagination. And of course, the children love looking at pictures in just about any field guide.

Don’t underestimate how capable young children are – they are so naturally connected already.

Josh: What are some key things to remember that you’d recommend to others sharing bird language with younger learners?

Michelle: It’s important to develop a consistent routine. By exploring and observing in the same place week after week, children will deeply get to know that place. We had one group that started at age two, and after three years at the same sit spot, they feel so connected there… they know when certain birds nest, they’ve experienced the cycles of life by observing hawks hunting, and they even know the sounds and behaviors of the local birds. The routine helps them to settle in, and to keep building on their connections week by week.

Josh: Thanks so much, Michelle… any closing thoughts you’d like to share?

Michelle: Don’t underestimate how capable young children are – they are so naturally connected already. They move slower than adults, and are closer to the ground, so they tend to notice more. They are amazingly connected, and have a lot to teach us about our own connection ability!

About Michelle Lawton:

Michelle Lawton founded Stretch the Imagination in 2002 with the intention of creating a program where children are free to explore and are given the time to delve deeply into their experiences. Stretch originally started as a program for art, yoga and music. Over the past 12 years, it has developed into a respected preschool program grounded in nurturing children’s development through creativity, inquiry and connecting to the natural world.

About the Author:

Josh Lane is an avid wildlife tracker and bird language observer. He contributed to the “How to Learn Bird Language” section of the book, What the Robin Knows, and developed the Backyard Bird Language online course. Josh is a nature connection mentor with 8 Shields, and has presented bird language trainings at events around North America, including the National Audubon Conference and the Occupational Therapy Association of California Conference.

by Geoffrey McMullan

Someone Is Coming

The San Bushmen call the Woodpecker (my favorite bird), Zana. They told me that when Zana calls it is telling them that someone will soon visit and indeed each time this happened they would call out “Sau” (the name they gave me, it means tree) and point in the direction of the resident Bearded Woodpecker, which was calling. Every time, soon afterwards, someone did visit us.

The Woodpecker Led the Way

Sometime after my trip to Namibia, I was running a tracking course for a friend in the north of England. On the second day I was explaining to the group about concentric rings and bird language, and how important these are to our tracking skills. I was sharing the story about Zana being the first bird to let the San Bushmen know if anyone was coming.

Literally, after telling this story I heard a Great-spotted Woodpecker give off its alarm call, Kik, kik, kik, kik, kik, in quick succession. As I looked up and called to the group to pay attention, the Great-spotted flew right past us. In hot pursuit came Blackbirds, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Nuthatch, Treecreeper and other birds which burst through the woods in hot pursuit of the woodpecker, as it lead them away from the threat.

We then scanned the woodlands in the direction the birds had flown from and sure enough there was a whole bunch of people walking along the broad walk in the woods. They were completely unaware of our presence, let alone the birds alarming. I was saying to the group just prior to this incident that sometime during the course I would throw a concentric ring while they were in their Sit-spots so that they could observe how the birds respond to my presence. Well, after that there was no need to throw that concentric ring, nature as always had done the job for me.

The Dance of the Roller

As I walked with the San Bushman, a Roller flew overhead. The bushman I was with pointed to it, whistled to the roller to get its attention. He then moved his body with his arms out stretched in a way that appeared to be mimicking the roll of a Roller in flight, then, right on cue the Roller rolled.

It seemed to me they were both connected to each other and were enjoying each other’s company through dance. In fact I know this was the case because I felt it. In my view we are all capable of this connection. It’s just that with the distractions of our modern lives, most of us have switched off to it.

Read more stories and learn inspiring games for teaching bird language in Geoffrey’s book, Exploring Bird Language.

The book includes 22 impactful and exciting games for children & adults.  Through play, these games effectively open a connection for people of all ages with the lives of the birds and the larger world of nature.

“Geoffrey has a way of working – calmly, slowly, with humor – that really draws you in.  His ability to connect with the natural world, and to share that connection to others, is really profound.  Games that seem simple and even child-like when described, took on a huge significance in my mind.  We were all deeply affected by the experience… Amazing.” -David Bond, Director – Green Lions

Learn more about the book & order your copy here.

About the Author

Founder of Pathfinder-UK, Geoffrey McMullan is a counselor with an MSc in Addiction Psychology. Geoffrey is a Survival, Bushcraft & Tracking Instructor, and also the author of the Discover Nature Awareness book series.

An Invitation to Learning

The simple process of asking questions has a funny way of opening up avenues of experience that might otherwise pass us by. Writing our questions down reinforces this process. Asking a question, especially a deeply inspired, heartfelt question,  creates an internal receptor for a new experience – it makes a space for novel interaction and learning to occur.

This internal receptor is like the negative pole of a magnet, drawing towards us the positive experiences available in life.  In this way, we can learn to wield questions as tools to expand our awareness and sense of connection. What questions might you ask about the lives of the birds at your sit spot?

Having mentored many folks in the art of bird language, I know that there is a great power in developing one’s own “burning questions”… the kind of questions that give us the drive and momentum to explore, discover and seek direct experience.

Jon Young, author of What the Robin Knows, points out that this questioning process begins as a basic curiosity about something. With nurturing from mentors, or from one’s own regular practice of journaling about nature experiences,  combined with exploring regularly outdoors, this sense of curiosity develops into a true passion for understanding and experience. This is what opens the doorway to deeper connection with nature, and helps one to immerse into the nuances of understanding bird language.

Changing the Brain?

There is a lot of excitement these days about neuroplasticity and the potential for meditation and other practices to actually help us re-wire our brains for more joy, peace and attentiveness. From my own experience and also from having seen the transformative effects of these tools for those I’ve mentored, I’ve observed that practicing the Art of Questioning along with sensory/place-based processes such as bird language generates a similar life-enhancing effect.

As sensory awareness and the process of asking deep questions is internalized, a creative spark comes into practitioner’s eyes. It’s as if a light switch turns on, and a powerful connection with nature comes online. Layers of the landscape that were previously “invisible” become ongoing generators of curiosity and awe. Sounds, scents, textures and patterns in nature fill the senses and bring wonderment.

Learning bird language provides a compelling reason to get outside, which is a key first step to discovery. Then, your questions can become guides to lead you further and connect deeper. So, what do you want to learn and experience this year?

About the Author:

Josh Lane is an avid wildlife tracker and bird language observer. He contributed to the “How to Learn Bird Language” section of the book, What the Robin Knows, and developed the Backyard Bird Language online course. Josh is a nature connection mentor with 8 Shields in Northern California, and has presented bird language trainings at events around North America, including the National Audubon Conference and the Occupational Therapy Association of California Conference.

Spring is an exciting time to watch bird language. In addition to meeting their basic survival needs, birds must focus on the tasks of territorial defense, courtship, and raising their young. This makes for an interesting time in the field. As the transition to early summer occurs, there still are many unique opportunities to observe bird behavior.

This article shares a few tips for the season – hopefully this will inspire your nature connection time in your local favorite nature spots!

Bird Territories “101”

A bird’s territory can grow and shrink as the season progresses. In some bird species, males arrive first on the breeding grounds and establish their core territories. Females arrives shortly thereafter, and males work hard to entice a mate and maintain their territories. Depending on the species, one or both members of a pair may work on nest building and egg brooding.

The size of the territory can vary with the food sources available nearby – if a bird has to travel further to find the food it needs, a larger territory may form. Song is used to warn away other males of the same species from intruding into the territory, or to attract a female and demonstrate fitness (it takes a lot of energy to sing!).

Nestlings tend to be fiercely guarded by parent birds. The core zone around the nest is the center of the bird’s springtime territory. American robins are quite vocal when their fledglings – not yet airworthy – are on the ground and vulnerable to predators such as house cats.

Listen for the “Teek! Teek! Tut tut tut” alarms of parent robins (track 3 in our audio library) perched up above their grounded young ones, a good indication of a nearby ground predator. As birds can have multiple clutches of young, this behavior can extend farther into the season.

Bird Language Tips for Spring & Early Summer:

Song Posts –

Spring is a great time to watch for frequently used song posts, such as fences, particular branches, and other natural landing spots with a view. Song sparrows, for example, often fly from one song perch to another as they tour their territory. Knowledge of song perches can help an observer to chart a bird’s territory.

Counter Song –

When a bird sings, a nearby bird may respond with a song of its own. For example, practice listening not just to the robin in your own yard, but also to the responses of robins in more distant yards and look for call and responses behaviors. Counter singing helps establish and maintain territorial boundaries.

Wing Flipping –

Watch for “wing flipping”, which is often utilized by female birds during courtship or by fledglings begging for food from the parent birds. In this behavior, a bird rapidly shakes its wings back and forth while perched, sometimes uttering begging or contact notes. If you see wing flipping, check to see if it is a fledgling bird – often a fledgling can be told by the “fluffy” look of its juvenile feathers.

These are just a few bird behaviors to continue watching as the season progresses. May your nature connection time be enjoyable and nourishing!

Photos & Text (c) 2014 Josh Lane

About the Author:

Josh Lane is an avid wildlife tracker and bird language observer. He contributed to the “How to Learn Bird Language” section of the book, What the Robin Knows, and developed the Backyard Bird Language online course. Josh is a nature connection mentor with 8 Shields in Northern California, and has presented bird language trainings at events around North America, including the 2013 National Audubon Conference.

In learning bird identification and bird language, we seek to understand more about each bird’s unique lifestyle and biology. By looking at a bird’s biology, we gain insights into that species’ approach to life and the quest for survival.

Adapted to Survive

Birds display an amazing variety of unique survival adaptations around the world, particularly in the wide assortment of bill shape and usage. When looking at a bird on the feeder or in the yard, notice the size and shape of the bill. This important field mark will help you narrow down the possibilities when looking up the bird in a field guide.

Beyond identification, bill shape can tell us a lot about a bird’s diet and role in the larger ecology of the landscape. This important structure also helps a bird to preen, build nests, and even provides defense against danger; all of these factors and more can play a role in the unique bill adaptations of each species. In this article, we will focus on the relationship of the bill to food usage, and general patterns in bill shape that can help birders to gain more insight into the lives and survival concerns of the birds in the back yard.

Below, we will look at a few common types of bill structures and the types of foods these bills are generally thought to be adapted for.

What’s On the Menu?
Types of Bird Bills and their Uses in Food Specialization

Any given bird species may eat a variety of foods as they are available. Each season and local landscape presents unique feeding opportunities.  Though a bird may fall into one of the general categories below for primary foods based on its beak shape, it’s diet may vary (and often does in many cases) to include foods of other categories.

Photo: The American robin regularly scours the ground for earthworms and other foods; the robin’s bill does double duty as the bird switches to a frugivore lifestyle in the autumn, dining on wild fruits as available.

References:

“Antipredator Calls of Tufted Titmice and Interspecific Transfer of Encoded Threat Information,” by Stacia A. Hetrick and Kathryn Sieving. Behavioral Ecology, January-February 2012.

The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Species. Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, Darryl Wheye. Simon & Schuster, Fireside, 1988.

Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function. Noble Proctor and Patrick Lynch. Yale University Press, 1993.

Photos & Text (c) 2014 Josh Lane

About the Author:

Josh Lane is an avid wildlife tracker and bird language observer. He contributed to the “How to Learn Bird Language” section of the book, What the Robin Knows, and developed the Backyard Bird Language online course. Josh is a nature connection mentor with 8 Shields in Northern California, and has presented bird language trainings at events around North America, including the 2013 National Audubon Conference.

Focal Species: Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
by Josh Lane, Kamana Naturalist Training Program Graduate
& 8 Shields Holistic Tracking Mentor

“Yellow-shafted Flicker Takes Flight” by Bob MacInnes, Flickr, CCBY 2.0 Attribute Only Photo License

I first started intentionally learning about birds and bird language as a teenager. Often while exploring the edges of the northern hardwood forests of New England, the air would explode with a loud, terse “wik-wik-wik-wik-wik-wik. . .” cry. The call was insistent and would always stop me in my tracks.

Frequently, I would try to find the elusive source of the sound, scanning the foliage to no avail. The bird would remain hidden, and the mystery lingered. Only later did I find this to be a trademark sound of the Northern Flicker, a uniquely marked bird with bright gilded wings. Their western counterparts have red-tinted flight and tail feathers, and both varieties have a noticeable white rump patch above the tail. Male flickers have either  black or red “mustache” malar markings (yellow-shafted and red-shafted varieties, respectively). Both sexes sport black crescent breast-bands, spotted bellies and barred backs. All in all, the flicker is a visually distinctive bird and a dependable teacher for us in the art of learning bird language.

“_MG_4555.jpg” by David Mitchell, Flickr, CCBY 2.0 Attribute Only Photo License

These days, I have learned to listen for the flicker’s sharp “Clear!!!” calls in conjunction with the “Teek! Teek tut tut tut!” alarms of the American robin, the combination of which often alerts one to the presence of a hunting Cooper’s hawk. The two birds seem to maintain a constant chess game with the accipiter, striving to keep a safe distance and alarming whenever they detect the swift predator changing position.  Listen for these paired flicker and robin calls, and then look for sudden bird plows in the distance as the flying accipiter pushes forward a wake of escaping prey.

These kinds of discoveries, such as the relationship of the hawk and the flicker, often arise when a group of people consistently sit and observe bird language together in the same place, over and over. Patterns like this are playing out on the landscape every day, waiting for us to tune into them. It helps to have more than one pair of eyes and ears spread across the landscape – one person may hear an alarm call, and another may actually see what caused it. Together the group sees a larger story that would be difficult or impossible for a lone observer to piece together. This concept is the basis for our yearly 8 Shields California Bird Language Intensive.

“Feathers, New York Botanical Garden” by Kristine Paulus, Flickr CCBY 2.0Attribute Only Photo License

Despite being of the woodpecker ilk, flickers spend a fair bit of time on the ground gleaning ants, which are a favored food. It is always a treat to come across the unique tracks of this species – look for them near ant mounds on sandy trails.

Unlike many species that have three toes forward and one toe back on each foot, the flicker leaves a “zygodactyl” k-shaped track caused  by two toes pointing forward, and the other two toes pointing backward on each foot. It is thought that this toe arrangement gives woodpeckers a better grip on tree bark, where they spend much of their time foraging for insect larvae.

Spend some time getting to know the flickers in your area, and they will become a dependable bird language teacher for the rest of your life.

It is a tribute to the author’s boyish enthusiasm and invigorating, if occasionally hyperbolic, blend of tracking skills and modern field ecology that he persuades you that you really can learn what he calls “deep bird language.” This involves mastering the multiple alarm calls that common birds make, understanding the calibrations of concern that each one represents and adding in a basic grasp of the body language of birds—not only as individuals but as a system of multiple species interacting in your backyard or in the woods. Learn all this and, voilà, you can say casually to your friends, “A cat’s coming. Look!” and they will stare in amazement a few moments later as one shows up.

I do not know whether Mr. Young, as he claims, really can predict from the birds whether a backyard intruder will turn out to be a dog or a cat or, if it is a cat, whether it is a cat familiar to the birds or not, any more than I can know for certain to what degree these are “native” methods, as he claims, passed on to him from his own mentor, who got them from his Native American grandfather. But there is so much delicacy of observation in Mr. Young’s book, so much expertise and intimacy with nature and so much common sense, that, to be honest, it didn’t much matter to me, especially when I field-tested his recommendations with one of my daughters.

In half an hour of watching—the minimum he recommends at a “sit spot,” since you need to allow the disturbed wildlife to return to its “baseline”—we were able to recognize many of the charmingly named bird behaviors he describes: the “sentinel” perched high while other birds, and species, foraged below; the “hook,” in which an alarmed but not overly concerned bird flies off and then back to a higher spot; the “bird plow,” when an intruder (in this case us) drives a whole range of birds before it.

What makes the approach of “What the Robin Knows” so refreshing is that it borrows back into bird-watching something the practice often surrenders to birders, those single-minded stalkers who identify and then abandon individual birds with promiscuous fury. My daughter has little interest in my fits of avian acquisitiveness, but sitting quietly in the woods, taking in the whole system as a sort of babbling classroom whose sounds and silences all communicate something important, she was mesmerized—and so was I. This, more than anything else, is what bird-watching ought to mean.

—Mr. Rosen is the editorial director of Nextbook and the author, most recently, of “The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature.”

During an early May morning in Maine, I was on a monthly conference call with some colleagues, occasionally multi-tasking on a few other projects, when I noticed that two robins outside my window (which was closed at the time) stopped moving.

I’m not talking a brief pause- instead, they were frozen in place. Not a muscle was moving.

Just a few minutes ago, they were hunting worms on the edge of the lawn. Now, two of them – one on the ground and one 5 feet up a witch hazel appeared immobilized. This caught my undivided attention.

Without thinking, I uttered something into the phone that made it sound like I was paying attention, then hit the mute button.  At that moment, I observed a second feature of the frozen robins.

Both  birds were intermittently opening  their beaks – only about 1/3 of the way open – then closing them.  It’s a “SEEEEEEET” alarm I said to the office manager. I put the handset on the desk and snuck out of the room quietly.

A thin, high-pitched “SEEEEEET” alarm from two frozen robins-who were both facing in the same direction – likely meant one thing: A dangerous raptor snuck in on them and was too close for comfort.

Using my mind’s eye to visualize the branches of the only large tree near the robins, a mid-sized American Beech, I realized going upstairs would give me a better view (and would likely not disturb the whole scene).

Sure enough, as I quietly and slowly walked toward the window (bird, especially raptors, can see into houses), I could see the robins, still frozen and still emitting their ventriloqual alarm.

I could also see the searching head and piercing eyes of a broad-winged hawk (a smaller buteo that can, and does, dispatch robins regularly in my neck of the woods), who was intently scanning the ground below for the robins that drew it in just a minute ago.

Without thinking, I decided to tap on the glass and see what happened.  In a flash, the hawk left it’s perch, going away from the robins, who, within 20 seconds (I counted) began vocalizing their discontent for the hawk with harsh “TUT!” calls.  It took those robins nearly two minutes to resume feeding nearby.

I was so excited about the whole story I just witnessed and took part in that I forgot my conference call. Upon my return, I saw that my colleagues were still all chatting away – apparently not even noticing my absence as I witnessed the near-death experience of a few of my neighbors.

Editor’s Note: Dan served as the science editor for the new book, What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World. He also worked with Lang Elliot of NatureSound Studio to produce an audio companion to the book (go there to hear the “Seeee” alarm call of the robin!). The BirdLanguage.com team welcomes Dan as a contributor – keep a look out for more stories from him!