How’s it going?
In What the Robin Knows, he keeps trying to tell you you can practice in urban/suburban places, but I’m not having much success.
Not being in an urban setting, I can’t experiment with that currently, but birdspeak has been on my mind lately. With swans, cranes, and ducks migrating over us by the gazillion, my mind is tuned into them all the time. A large part of that is because I’m hungry sometimes and they are tasty. I often wonder how much having a subsistence relationship with the animal world tunes our senses in a way an intellectual effort can’t. It seems like there’s a kind of instinct that shifts into gear when we’re in animal mode versus research mode.
2 Likes
It sounds like you need to do it a lot longer. Awareness doesn’t happen overnight. You’re probably trying to hard to find all the details, let the bigger picture sink in. What Young describes in that book is 100% dead on, but as he talks about in the Advanced Bird Language series (well, well worth listening to), you have to be ready for that as well. No judgement, you just have to keep trying and be ready to break down barriers in your head.
Be on the look out for bird plows, everywhere you go. That’s the best place to get started, stop thinking that they just happen for no reason and go from there.
1 Like
Well you’re for sure right about me not practicing enough, at all. The thing that discourages me from practicing is there are no birds, not within 10 minute walking distance. It’s still the best book and just having read it has made me start to notice so much.
OK, sometimes some crows stop by in the morning also there’s one little black one (that I should really identify) that I see sometimes that is an actual ground bird. (If anyone knows any crow resources that don’t just say “it’s too complicated”…)
One other cool thing I remember from listening to Advanced Bird Language or something related was finding hawks by driving around and observing what the birds (pigeons?) are doing. Been meaning to try that on a bike.
Or I could drive to the nearby coastal wetlands and just watch cormorants which are very cool, but I’d be without a guidebook.
I guess I’m looking for any experience from suburban, poor-ish (not a lot of parks) areas. Actually I just want to hear people talk about what they’ve seen because it’s the coolest topic.
1 Like
I’m not saying it is impossible, but improbable that you live in a place that is 10 minutes from any birds unless it is some insane hellscape that has eradicated all life. In which case, you should probably move very quickly.
Assuming you are in the US, the “little black one” is probably a Starling or Grackle. Both of which are like crows and really social birds, so there should be a lot of them. Certainly enough to absorb some bird language. But are there no trees or buildings? There are notorious instances of Peregrines nesting on huge buildings in cities. And I have seen plenty of birds in the center of Manhattan.
I have never been to a place where there are no birds, so it’s hard to believe there is one.
In terms of a resource, it’s easiest to just search online for “birds of” whatever area you are in. Identifying birds is not an easy ordeal. You can learn a lot, but even the Cherokee called all Warblers “Warblers” since there are so many.
1 Like
I haven’t seen it recently, but it’s the kind with a mohawk. Black Phoebe maybe.
I saw a huge owl on 4th of July . It was sizing up and screech-hypnotizing a smallish house cat from a 2nd story roof. I took the cat inside and the owl left. I saw it open it’s wings. It was huge. (This was not at my apartment)
Still being lazy and haven’t found a good spot.
1 Like