Nature Wisdom Podcast: Episode 06
Cats are excellent teachers of bird language… Did you know that?
If you live in a place where there are cats or people who own cats (Which is pretty much everywhere…)
One thing I can guarantee is that during at least three seasons of the year there are going to be songbirds alarming at those cats!
And it’s going to be a fairly common occurrence.
You can use this to your advantage as a tool for training your awareness.
All over the world, cats with names like Fluffy and Puffy are giving you one of the BEST opportunities to get your ears tuned with how bird language really works.
Some of my earliest success with bird language came from following bird alarms directed at house cats because they’re so common and much less elusive than fully wild animals.
And here’s the really exciting part.
Once you get tuned with the cat alarms… now you have a point of comparison for future experiences with other types of alarms for different and more rare animals.
You might start to discover there’s a lot more happening in your backyard bushes than meets the eye 😉
Opening Transcript:
Hey it’s Brian Mertins and welcome to another episode of The Nature Wisdom podcast.
This is where I get together with other nature skills practitioners who are interested in developing skills like bird language and tracking and nature observation and just living lives that are connected to nature on a deeper level so we can really expand our awareness and make the most of our sensory abilities as people.
We live in a very fast paced technological world and taking some time to just tune in with what’s happening with the birds and the plants and the trees and how all these different things work together as a system.
It’s a really great skill that has incredible stimulating effects for your mind and for your emotions and just helping us to live healthier, happier and more successful lives.
So today I’m talking with Stefanie Dimitrovas and Stefanie is located in Montreal Canada where she runs programs for adults and kids as part of a nature school called coyote programs.
I’ve been working with Stefanie for a few months now and we’ve really been talking a lot about different ways of pushing her awareness and helping her get tuned with nature on a deeper level so she can then mentor her students in a deeper way and in this particular conversation we were really focusing a lot on the topic of bird language and just some of the different patterns that she’s been noticing around bird language.
She had a really great example of an alarm sequence where her cat was out in the courtyard by the place where she lives and the response of some robins to that cat being there.
It was a really fascinating look at the different dynamics that happen when you have a cat moving through a landscape and how when you can actually get yourself tuned with the behaviors and the vocalizations that the birds are making you can actually use that to locate animals.
And it’s really one of the best ways to expand your awareness when you go outside.
Then we also spent some time talking about the song patterns of cardinals and different ways of actually tuning in with how birds are singing on a individual level where each individual bird actually has its own individual way of singing that changes from moment to moment.
And how when you can really get your ears deeply tuned in with how each bird expresses itself individually through song, it really opens up the whole world of bird language on a much deeper level.
I think you’re going to really enjoy this conversation.
We spent a lot of time just asking questions and really modelling ways of building curiosity and applying our awareness towards understanding nature and bird language on a very very deep level.
Stephanie is going to use this both in her own connection to nature and she’s also using this to help others connect with nature on a much deeper level so it’s just a really great conversation and you’ll be able to apply these same lessons in your own forests, fields, and backyards.
Hope you enjoy!
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