Youth Nature Awareness

Native Eyes was off this week, so I'm updating with a Story of the Day from the Riekes Center Nature Awareness group of youth that I lead every Friday in Huddart Park. No photos for this one.

We began the day by each randomly choosing one of eight Guardian roles and making a statement to the group about how we'd fulfill those roles: Our Hydration Guardian would ask people if they'd drunk water at lunchtime, the Poison Oak Guardian would point out poison oak when she noticed it, the Ranger Watch Guardian would announce when she heard a ranger's truck, etc. Our Bird Language Guardian committed to watching and listening for junco alarm calls throughout the day.

We started off on a wander to find friction fire materials and tan oak acorns. Everyone was loud and boisterous, and speaking at eachother in city-volume voices. We played some rowdy games to burn off energy. Then we settled down for a snack and I told a story of one of my first bird language experiences, in which birds told me that a predator was near but I didn't listen, and then I scared a fawn into the waiting jaws of a bobcat (the predator that the birds had been shouting about) because I forgot to be attentive, quiet and respectful in the woods.

As we finished the story, all the juncos that had been feeding to the west of us started chipping excitedly, and moved in a wave overhead toward the east. They disappeared into the woods and were silent. Our Bird Language Guardian excitedly pointed out the junco's activities to the rest of the group. A minute or two later, the NEWTS appeared from the west. After the NEWTS moved through, the juncos returned. The whole group, with huge grins on all faces, discussed this newly-noticed pattern that the birds had shown us and speculated about how we might use it to sneak up on the NEWTS in the future.

We continued on our wander, finding few fire materials and no acorns anywhere we went. We did go through some tall and healthy manzanita bushes, though, and picked a good supply of the berries to make cider.

We wandered around back toward the parking lot making sure to take a different way, and on the way found a very fresh trail of coyote tracks, along with a fresh addition to the coyote's latrine where the trail joined the road. The scats were of many different ages, and we realized that we could read a little of the shifting life of the coyote in their differences. We decided to check back often for more coyote news.

As we approached the parking lot, motion caught my eye off the road -- a grey squirrel. But he had something in his mouth. We all stopped to watch, wondering what the oblong white object was. We watched him sit there, looking at us, gnawing on his white object like it was a corncob. When he was done he sidled a little ways off, turned his back to us, dug a shallow hole in the duff, and buried the object. When he was well up his tree we clambered up the hill to find out what the object was. A bone! It was aged and dry, and covered with short grooves gnawed into the surface by the squirrel. We wondered where it came from, and why the squirrel wanted to chew on it. We put the bone back and thanked the squirrel for sharing his secrets with us.

Back at our fort in the woods, we took some time to go to our sit spots. After everyone had gone to sit I rustled through my bag for a snack, crackling wrappers and muttering to myself until I realized that I was the only one making any noise. Everyone else was completely silent at their spot. In place of the usual sounds of fidgety people and quiet chit-chat between neighbors, all I heard was the wind in the treetops and the soft calls of feeding juncos. I sat very still and listened.

When we gathered again, I found out that some of the youth, in particular our Bird Language Guardian, had been surrounded by feeding juncos at their sit spots. They wanted to stay quiet and still out of respect for the birds. Others had been sitting still, making cordage and listening to the quiet sounds of the birds feeding by their classmates. None of them wanted to come back in when I called.

In the past, I've tried to get groups to pay attention to junco alarms by calling the birds Ninja Birds, doing skits about them, and otherwise building up their roles as the stealthy guardians of the forest. But never have I seen such successful bird language awareness in a whole youth group as today, when just one person in the group was asked to pay attention to just one kind of call from just one kind of common bird. The whole group ended the day with new respect and understanding of the role of birds as the communication network of the woods.