Image: Nolan White Photography
Byron Trails went offline and out of range for 3 days over the weekend for Jon Young’s wildlife workshop at Inter-Action 15km southwest of Uki in Tweed Shire.
Jon Young is a tracker and nature advocate from the US who has devoted himself to connecting people with Nature. He calls birds the sentinels of the forest and considers that an understanding of the calls and postures of the birds will give you an incredible insight into all wildlife in the forest, or any other environment for that matter.
5 bird voices
There are 5 bird calls ranging from relaxed to tense. They are:
- Song (including mating calls)
- Companion calls
- Territorial aggression
- Juvenile begging
- Alarm
Sounds relatively simple at this point. But when you add in the fact that different birds have different alarm calls for different predators the whole picture becomes quite complex. Not to mention that different birds are preyed on by different predators. It’s a fascinating area of exploration and for anyone with an interest in birds or wildlife in general Jon’s work is a must.
But you don’t have to go to the forest to learn this ‘bird language’. You can watch the birds from your own back yard and learn their movements throughout the day and the seasons. His book “What the Robin Knows” gives some simple and easy-to-follow guidance and can be picked up from all the usual online bookshops. The best thing is that you can use what you learn in your back yard to gain insight into any landscape.
[Images: Nolan White Photography]
