Who is in the woods?

[preacherman]

I have just come back from a bird language course at IPNA, run by Aebhric O Kelly, a former student of Jon Young and Tom Brown and have had my eyes opened literally at the importance of knowing bird language for bushcraft/survival activities.

Before this weekend I would have heard the birds obviously but was not interpreting their sounds properly and therefore not getting the most out my trips out. I learned to recognise the different calls and behaviours of the birds and how to move quietly through the woods so as not to set off alarms which would hinder any possibility of seeing wildlife.

The birds can tell us who is in the woods if we learn to hear them properly. When I signed up for this course I didnt realise how important a role bird language could play in a survival situation or even in a bushcraft night out where you would like to stay under the radar. The birds can warn us of any approaching predator/human, allowing us to slip quietly out of sight until the danger/imposter has passed.

Normally your average walker in the woods will not see any wildlife because the birds have alarmed and all of the animals will have moved away out of sight. By learning bird language over the weekend I had a field mouse come and walk around at my feet while I was walking quietly through a section of woodland. This fieldmouse did not seem to mind that I was there and continued to potter around my feet for a while before going about his business.

Now, I have only spent one weekend learning bird language so I cannot even begin to call myself anything other than a beginner at this but I am really looking forward to continuing on to get to know all of the calls and behaviours of the birds. I want to progress from a fieldmouse to a fox pottering around my feet. That will take years and years of practice no doubt, and might never happen, but its a great excuse to get out in the woods a few times a week, all throughout the year.

I rate this skill right up there with fire lighting, shelter building etc. for the type of activities we take part in. I wonder if anyone else on here has done anything like this or even agree that it is an important skill to learn.

I am prepared for scepticism on this but I really believe that it is a vital skill for nature awareness/bushcraft/survival, call it what you like.

Now where can I hide......

 

[hedgepig]

So, let's get this straight - you are both listening to the birds and making your own bird call sounds?

 

[Barn Owl]

All part of good fieldcraft in bird/wildlife watching.

Use it regularly and a mate of mine is unbelievable in the calls of all birds, not just song but as you say alarm and contact calls.

'Ordinary' walkers out and about miss so much,if only they'd slow down,quieten down and concentrate a wee bit.

 

[preacherman]

So, let's get this straight - you are both listening to the birds and making your own bird call sounds?

Not making bird sounds, just listening to what they are saying. They have the best view of the woods and know all that is around and alarm when something or somebody is walking in their domain. By learning the different calls you can avoid or approach whatever is alarming the birds.

Its a really cool skill and weighs nothing!!!

 

[Prawnster]

Sounds ace.

How do you stop the birds from making alarm calls because of your own presence though?

 

[Celt_Ginger]

Pardon the pun, but it sounds interesting. I'd not really thought about it other than I would normally take my time when walking through woodlands and be careful about where I place my feet etc. Perhaps you could share some more info with us.

 

[hedgepig]

OK, but I don't see how listening to bird calls results in "tame" field mice. I can understand that by listening to bird alarms you can move into an area where the other fauna has not been alerted by the bird calls and so give yourself a better chance of seeing them. However, Apodemus sylvaticus is not a tame creature and neither is a fox. In your encounter with the mouse, were you stationary or moving?

 

[Shewie]

Fascinating stuff Preacherman, something I`ve been meaning to get into for a while now.

There was a link on here a few years ago to a website with all the sounds available to download, I`ll try and dig it out for you.


Rich

 

[Shewie]

There`s a few interesting bits here but there`s a few more somewhere

http://www.wildlife-sound.org/index.html


Rich

 

[Pantalaimon]

It reminds me from a post from this forum:

Last year I was out in the bush with the BCUK expedition and our guide said some interesting things.

......

One late afternoon, it was quite overcast, but he said " It will not rain to night".

I asked him why.

"The bird told me so", he replied. It didn't rain.

On later questioning, it seems that that was a mating call. I suppose that the bird will not start making preparations for mating rituals if the weather is going to cool his lady's ardour.

 

[Rhoda]

It is a fascinating subject and a skill well worth having. I just missed out on a Jon Young course a few years ago and it is something that I would love to know more of. Learning bird language is so useful in terms of tracking and I think can definitely improve your chances of close encounters with wildlife.
Keep up the practice Preacherman, I'm sure that you will get a lot from learning this skill. You've inspired me to get back to learning bird language myself!

 

[preacherman]

[QUOTE In your encounter with the mouse, were you stationary or moving?[/QUOTE]

I was moving at the time, very slowly and quietly. I had one foot raised ready to take the next step when the fieldmouse came out. Sometimes one step can take minutes. I learned some sense meditation techniques on the course which cause you to take note of your surroundings and not shut them out. This increases your awareness so that you are using all of your senses. There is a bit more to it than that but hard to explain.

Basically we all have a profile that will alarm the birds and its about working to reduce your profile so that for example if you were to lie down in the woods your profile would be like a fallen log or something eventually to the birds and they would not alarm because a fallen log is supposed to be in the woods. They eventually get used to the log and will land on or near to it. It is only when you move that they will get a scare and fly off. We had practiced various techniques which reduced our profile to a point where the birds were not alarming when we were walking through the woods. Because the birds were not alarming I presume the fieldmouse felt it safe to come out. My left foot was about 6 inches from the hole that the mouse came out and my right foot abou 6 inches off the ground. There was a girl on the course with me who had a mouse walk between her feet when she was sitting down. The mouse walked through her feet and then walked back again.

Birds also have a critical edge where they will alarm and we spent time exploring that critical edge by stalking birds until we reached that critical edge and then backing off till they calmed down. We would then move around to see if we could get back inside that critical edge until they no longer alarmed at our presence.

Thanks for the link Shewie.

Sorry if I cant keep up with all of your replies, I am at work and every now and then I have to get up and do a bit so I have to log off.

 

[scanker]

Sounds really interesting. Cheers for the replies so far.

 

[redandshane]

I am interested in this kind of thing; it is alluded to in tracker by Tom Brown
Anyone got any other reading or websites etc
Be great to hear more detail of the course if possible please preacherman

 

[preacherman]

The place that I did my course is in Kerry in Ireland, http://www.ipna.ie/sched.html. This is the course schedule page from the Institute of Permaculture and Nature Awareness, IPNA. The bird language weekend course is outlined there.

Also http://www.natureskills.com/language_of_the_birds.html has some literature that you can read online. These are only a basic taster of what we learned on this course.

Basically our course schedule ran through the voices of the birds, fox walking, owl vision, deer ears and sense meditation. We learned to walk quietly in the woods (you would not believe how loud your clothes are, especially goretex). We learned about routines of invisibility. This didn't mean that we learned to be invisible obviously but various techniques that as a whole helped reduce your profile in the woods. We learned about bird identification and bird behaviour.

We learned about finding a sit spot which is at the root of all of this. We would use all of the techniques learned over the weekend to walk quietly to our sit spot where we would try and identify the various birds and their calls and behaviour.


I plan to get out about three times a week at different times to practice these techniques. I reckon I will have to sit through all four seasons at least to get to know the calls and behaviour of the birds in my sit spot. Some of the calls are only heard during mating season as previously mentioned by Pantalaimon. Once mastered this skill can be taken anywhere in the world as bird behavior is common around the world even if the species are different.

I know that the words sense meditation sounds a bit ''new age'' but its not like that at all. Its about taking notice of your surroundings, the breeze on your back, the dog barking way off in the distance, the smells of the forest and being able to look around you so as not to miss anything. Once you are in tune with your surroundings you are diminishing your profile and the birds and the animals will come to accept your presence as being ''normal''. Once you are ''normal'' the birds and animals will carry on as if you are not there.

Obviously this will not happen to me overnight and my aim to touch a fox might be unrealistic but you have to give yourself a goal to achieve or else you might not want to go out on a wet morning in December to sit in the rain waiting for the birds to calm down.....

Have to log off now but happy to answer any more questions on this as best I can tomorrow if there is any interest.

 

[robin wood]

I remember first being shown how to imitate alarm calls and particularity the squealing of a dying rabbit years ago by an old chap who used to shoot foxes. When he told me he could call foxes up i thought it was a wind up but within seconds he had every predator in the area heading our way. I have had foxes run within feet of me this way. Whenever I hear the alarm calls go off I look, round here it normally means sparrowhawk, or cat.

 

[Barn Owl]

I remember first being shown how to imitate alarm calls and particularity the squealing of a dying rabbit years ago by an old chap who used to shoot foxes. When he told me he could call foxes up i thought it was a wind up but within seconds he had every predator in the area heading our way. I have had foxes run within feet of me this way. Whenever I hear the alarm calls go off I look, round here it normally means sparrowhawk, or cat.

I've had fun with that call too,best was a stoat totally dumbfounded when he saw me,but kept looking for the rabbit for a good few mins'.
Totally ignored me really.

 

[redandshane]

Thanks for that detail preacherman
you have got me googling now and I found this quite interesting

http://www.backyardbushcraft.co.uk/blog/?p=8

 

[firecrest]

I once heard the swifts in my roof making alarm calls, I wondered what was wrong and went outside. two of them had gotten tangled together at the nest entrance and were about to fall to the ground. no fewer than FOUR cats had already gotten beneath the nest before Id got to it and it was only a minute of hearing the call. Clearly the cats were well tuned into distress calls made by swifts. When they fell from the nest a fight ensued between me and the cats to grab both the birds. I grabbed one while the cat was attempting to drag it under the fence, unfortunately i never found the other bird.

 

[firecrest]

I once heard the swifts in my roof making alarm calls, I wondered what was wrong and went outside. two of them had gotten tangled together at the nest entrance and were about to fall to the ground. no fewer than FOUR cats had already gotten beneath the nest before Id got to it and it was only a minute of hearing the call. Clearly the cats were well tuned into distress calls made by swifts. When they fell from the nest a fight ensued between me and the cats to grab both the birds. I grabbed one while the cat was attempting to drag it under the fence, unfortunately i never found the other bird.