Over twenty species of birds visit my backyard bird feeder regularly. If you had asked me about that before the covid-19 pandemic, I would have guessed maybe five or six species. Why was my perception so far off from reality? Why am I writing about this in a blog for a company that writes custom software?
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
—Henry David Thoreau
Awareness
When covid-19 confined us to the house, we began to eat lunch and dinner on the screened porch in the backyard. The bird feeder was in sight, and the sounds of the birds in the backyard were much more apparent. Noisy tussles between birds over perches on the feeder would catch our attention. Why would all the other birds fly away when this one really big woodpecker came to the feeder? Wait, we also had woodpeckers half the size of this big guy. Why do some birds only seem to eat seed from the ground?
Curiosity led to the purchase of our first bird identification guide. Despite not being able to see red on the underside of our big visitor, I learned it is called a red-bellied woodpecker. I noticed that its size, unique call, and the shape of its head are the cues I needed to identify it. I saw two nearly identical species in the guidebook, the downy and the hairy woodpecker. The advice to differentiate the two species was “dinky downy and huge hairy.” The downy has a smaller beak and is maybe 20% smaller than the hairy. Finding distinguishing marks on birds from thirty feet away was really tough. We invested in our first pair of birding binoculars.
We learned about wing bars, circles around the eyes, flashes of white that are only seen during flight, and different flight patterns. These are some of the many characteristics that separate different species. A whole new world opened up to us because we began to pay attention and to question what we were seeing.
Understanding
Recognizing many more birds was fun, but just the first step. A naturalist I met during a tracking class suggested I read “What the Robin Knows.” It turns out songbird behavior is a great indicator of what’s happening around you. Each species of bird has multiple calls. We’re all familiar with the elaborate early morning songs you hear in the spring when birds are staking out their territories.
I learned they also use much shorter chirps as “contact” calls to keep track of their mates while feeding in the same area. It’s as though they’re saying, “I am okay, are you?” about every 10 seconds. They also employ different “warning” chirps. Depending on the type of predator and the urgency of the threat, the warning signs vary. A person approaching at a casual walk might trigger the bird to fly higher in a tree and start a slow warning chirp. A life-threatening situation, like a Cooper’s hawk flying towards the area, elicits the songbird equivalent of DEFCON 1. The songbirds will immediately go quiet and dive for cover in the nearest bush.
Recognizing these behaviors across the different bird species requires immersing yourself in their environment. This practice is called having a “sit spot.” Pick a spot outdoors where you sit and observe for at least 30 minutes at a time. When you arrive, the animals will be in alert mode for maybe the first 15 minutes you’re there. If you remain quiet and still, though, they’ll relax and return to baseline behaviors. Repeating this exercise frequently and journaling about what you observe builds your base of knowledge about the birds and animals around you and their typical behaviors. After doing this for a while, I know when there’s a predator like a hawk or owl in our backyard within seconds of stepping outside.
Application
I try to take what I have learned from my hobbies of birding and learning about ecology and apply that to my work. Delivering a valuable custom solution for a client requires both awareness and understanding. As a consultant, I have to learn what specific issues are important for my client and in their industry. While I can bring experience from past projects to bear, if I do not keep my eyes open to learn what is different in this situation, then the solution is likely to fall short. That requires embedding yourself in their business to understand baselines and challenges. Gathering enough data and listening to the input from the stakeholders helps you hone in on the most important requirements and also builds understanding of who the users are and what solution is appropriate for them.
The post What Are You Looking At? The Power of Awareness appeared first on Atomic Spin.
