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The Silvercore Podcast explores the mindset and skills that build capable people. Host Travis Bader speaks with hunters, adventurers, soldiers, athletes, craftsmen, and founders about competence, integrity, and the pursuit of mastery, in the wild and in daily life. Hit follow and step into conversations that sharpen your edge.
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Spring has sprung and with it
the cacophony of animal sounds.
Have you ever wondered what
the animals may be saying?
If there may be order to the
seemingly chaotic, what would
the animals be saying about you?
What if through decades of careful
observation and the emergence of modern
language tools we're able to quantifiably
decipher exactly what was being said?
That's what today's guest has
written extensively about.
If you want to connect deeper
with your natural world to
understand animal language, you
don't want to miss this episode.
Welcome to the Silvercore
Podcast, George Bauman.
Thanks, Travis.
Great to be here.
You've written this book,
eavesdropping on Animals, and I
just finished it up yesterday.
It's a great book.
It covers a lot of things
that I hold dear to my heart.
I think it's a roadmap for people
who want to be present, to be able
to commune better with nature.
And I would wholeheartedly recommend
anybody who's kind of sitting on the
fence, who, uh, wants to understand
their natural world and what's going
on around 'em a bit better to pick
up the book Eavesdropping on Animals.
George, what brought you
to write such a book?
Well, I wanna save people time.
You know, I grew up and I wanted to know
exactly what you just said in the intro,
like, what are those animals saying?
How I, and without having
folks having to spend decades.
Basically four decades doing what I've
been doing to get a, a foothold into
really digging into seeing the place you
live or wherever you travel in incredible
ways that you, you can't possibly imagine.
You know, all these little hidden secrets
that the non-human, or more than human
beings show you are just ridiculously
cool, and it takes a little while to get
on board, but not as much as you'd think.
You know, we're actually already wired
for it, but like, it hit a, a crystalline
moment for me when I was a kid, I, I
grew up on a lake in upstate New York
and, uh, I would go off across the lake
in the winter and I would track the
foxes, and I got good enough at tracking.
I realized one day that
this track of this fox.
Immediately turned and took
off in the other direction.
Like I always assumed that the foxes
were out at night and we didn't share
the woods at any particular time.
'cause I never saw anything like I'm sure
listeners can, you know, identify with.
It's like you go for a walk on
the beach, you go for a bike ride,
you go for a hike, you're hunting.
You don't see squat.
Right.
But you know, and I realized
through those tracks like that
Fox wasn't just there at night.
It was actually there at the same
exact time I was, without the
tracks, I wouldn't have known this.
But the, the second realization was
like, how the hell this thing, no, I
was there and took off in the opposite
direction when I was still on the
Lakeshore, like hundreds of yards away.
Like it knew I was there.
I'm being quiet.
I'm
not stepping on sticks like I'm
sneaking along, just being quiet.
I'm trying to see what I conceive,
but it knew I was there and
I didn't know it was there.
Like how does that magic work?
And that's really what's propelled
me for decades and trying to figure
out exactly that kind of stuff.
You know, I think you hit
on something there too.
And so with my company, Silvercore, we
do hunter education training, which is
basically safety and ethics and rules,
and it doesn't teach you how to hunt.
That's a lifelong skill that
people will learn over time.
You wrote about hunting, but when you
wrote about hunting, it was always in
the past tense, as in you used to hunt.
Um, he didn't directly address it.
I saw throughout the book the, uh, the
transition between used to hunting and,
and, um, possibly no longer hunting if
I'm reading the subtext properly here.
Um, but.
There's a lot of people will go out into
the woods and do exactly what you say.
They'll be looking for animals,
intently looking for animals,
and they won't be seeing what
it is that they're looking for.
Yeah.
What advice would you give, it's sort
of a, uh, a broad two part question, but
what advice would you give for somebody
who wants to have more success in seeing
the animals that they're looking for?
And maybe after that, um, if I'm
corrected my assumption that you no
longer hunt, what transpired that
changed you from experience in the
natural world in such an intimate
way of hunting to the way you do now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are great questions, Travis.
And, um, to address that one
first I, I Hunting was life, like
that's hunting, fishing, trapping.
Even for years like that was, a
lot of kids would go play football
after school, you know, or, you
know, get up together with friends.
No way, man.
I was on the bus as soon
as I was off the bus.
I was grabbing my ice auger
and rods and I was out fishing.
I was jumping in the F-150
going, checking the trap line,
or, you know, that was life.
And it still is part of me.
And I, because I stopped doesn't mean
I, I don't support that stuff anymore.
I wholeheartedly do.
'cause I think for a lot of
people, that's the only way.
And for our society, those are
some of the, the key folks who
understand wildlife among the best.
Um, but I'm here to tell you, there's
a lot more, even those who have been
doing it a lot, maybe a whole lifetime,
you, you've been missing things.
And I, I hope the book, and you know,
the podcast here will help people
understand that the big thing that
really sort of took me away from
hunting was, um, health reasons.
Hmm.
Um, my dad and some of the family
members and his family line, going back,
the men didn't make it much past 50.
And I wanted to do everything I
could to be around for my family.
And so, um, that meant stopping eating
meat, um, which is almost like heresy
in, in the circles that I grew up in.
Right.
Sure.
You know, hunting, fishing,
like that's part of life.
And I, I, I took, uh, kind
of a reference to the matrix.
What are the blue pill or whatever it
was like, mm. I had to look at some of
the, the science and my own physiology.
Like I had high cholesterol.
Hmm.
Same build and stuff, you know,
always been slim and, you know,
but I had high cholesterol.
They're gonna put me on drugs
for the rest of my life.
I'm like, no way.
Mm-hmm.
Whatever I have to do
to avoid being on that.
And I just turned 50, you know, and so
the, the echoes of my dad's situation
with cancer and his dad before him
with cardiovascular disease, I'm
like, I. I, I, I have to own up to
the, the honest truth on some of
this stuff Now, I, I still hunt.
Literally I hunt in my
dreams all the time.
I got this amazing gobbler
a week or so ago.
I woke up and I was like,
man, that was awesome.
You know, and I still move through
the woods as though I am, but stepping
back from it has also allowed me
to learn a lot of stuff that I
wouldn't have if I continued hunting.
I know that sounds a bit paradoxical,
um, but not having the end goal of
firing the shop, then field dressing
and, you know, all those sorts of things.
You know, and I, when I wrote the book,
I really tried to find this reference.
There was a, a just so reference I
heard at one point that said the most
knowledgeable sportsmen in the field
are archery hunters and trappers.
The archery hunter has to wait
until the animal's in range and
they have to watch a lot more.
They see a lot more.
And the trapper, of course, is having
to read, sign really closely and
predict where the animal's gonna go.
And, and I never did find the study,
but I think that Axiom holds that,
you know, the more in depth you look,
the more you start to find, you know?
And as a kid, I started already
noticing like, okay, there's a
difference in the cadence to a gray
squirrels movement through the leaves.
And that's different from what a
whitetailed deer, the cadence of its
feet, going through those same leaves,
which is different still than, you
know, a mink or, you know, wild turkeys,
you know, that scratch, scratch,
scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
You know, like there, there are already
these, these constructs that I was aware
of, but it really wasn't until I was, um.
Almost in my early twenties till when
some of this stuff broke wide open.
Like you can know a lot more than that.
And, and that's where
the fun really starts.
And I think for hunters, bikers,
hikers, anybody, um, who wants to
feel more a part of where they are,
whether that's home or on on the
road, you, you gotta learn this stuff.
And the cool thing is
you don't need equipment.
Hmm.
You don't need very much at all beyond
just a shift in your perspective.
And all of a sudden, like boom,
things start opening up and you start
knowing things that someone's standing
right next to you is oblivious to.
How did it break wide open
in your early twenties?
You know, I have to be
honest, I love the outdoors.
I love wildlife.
I started a wildlife and fisheries
major at SUNY ESF, the College of
Forestry in Syracuse, New York.
And I loved it.
Like I dove in, I took an extra
semester, I studied every class, I
got into every class I could take.
I was a TA for ornithology and
homology and ology, you know,
tree ID and all this stuff.
And I just, I ate it up and then I went to
graduate school and it became more focused
and more, um, rigorous for good reasons.
But I also found, and I had to be
honest with myself, it started to
take me away from what really made
me interested about being outside.
You know, I was focusing on p values and
statistical analysis and a study design
that was, you know, something that would
get my paper into a journal and not.
Can I set up a blind to see?
I studied rough grouse and
predation on rough grouse.
I'm like, I, I tried like crazy
to just understand grouse better
in that part of the country.
You know, I grew up with certain
grouse and the way they behaved in
upstate New York and they behaved
very differently in Virginia.
Interesting.
And, um, things like that.
And so I started just before I'd go
into the office, or before I'd go in
for classes, I would go out to this
wild area, um, on the, the town land
in Blacksburg and just sit almost like
that bow hunter would and just hang out.
I started birding in years before that.
Nobody ever birded like who,
who watches Dickie Birds, right?
Like, growing up, like Right.
Nobody does that
right.
But as, as I learned in university,
you know, there, there's a lot
of cool stuff going on there.
So I started watching more
closely and, and started birding.
But there was one day,
one crystal and day.
I mentioned it in the book, I
think, where I was sitting there in
this little spot, a birder friend.
He's a older guy who was a
surgeon in, in World War ii.
He was actually president on D-Day.
And um, Ken wasn't there that day, so
I dropped into what he called Eden.
It was just this little bowl full of
multi-floor rows and sassa frass and,
you know, all it is just, and there's
this beautiful grassy glade that went
down to a marsh, just like idyllic
spring setting about this time of year.
You know, and like the birds are
singing everywhere and you know, the
sunlight through those young green
leaves, it was just like gorgeous.
And I'm sitting there and all
of a sudden at one point I
just get inundated with birds.
I had sat in kind of this little el
cove of multi-floor rows, which were
about four feet high and kind of circled
me on, on three sides and birds just
like landed all almost on me all over.
Like there was a white, I remember
the white-eyed verio most pointedly.
'cause I'd never had an unaided
view of a white-eyed verio
that close, no binoculars.
Like I could see the eye
and it was watching me.
Wow.
It was just, there were cardinals
and Carolina rz and all these
birds were just hanging out.
And I was like, on one level was
like, well, I must be kind of like St.
Francis here.
Everybody wants to hang out with me.
You know, the, the wild animals.
And um, it was about, I can't remember
the exact time, but minutes later.
I see some movement on the ridge top
up above me, maybe, you know, like 80
yards away and through the, you know,
you are only getting little pieces of it.
But I realized putting those pieces
together, it was a, a dog, a golden
retriever, and soon behind it
was this woman, and it was just
like this light bulb went off.
I'm like, oh my gosh, those birds
weren't coming to visit with me.
They were escaping the disruption
caused by this dog and this woman.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've
been a hunter my whole life.
I was still a hunter then.
You know, like I'd never noticed this.
Is this going on for the coyote?
Can I tell there's a bobcat coming
and you know, on and on and on.
And so the next couple decades
was really leaning into that
and asking those hard questions.
But the cool thing was finding some
really cre pretty crazy cool answers.
Well, you read about being able to tell if
there's a wolf on the ridge, by the way.
A coyote calls.
Yeah.
Just by the, the vocalization it makes
and you're like, oh, that's wolf as
opposed to let's say something else.
Yeah.
And it's not just there's trouble.
Like No, it is a wolf.
Like, I don't even need to check.
It's been so many years of verifying and
checking and I always still, like last
week I was walking the dog and we're
on, on the trail and I hear this alarm.
I'm like, that sounds like what
a coyote would say for a wolf
rather than a mountain lion.
What?
So what's it sound like,
you know?
Um.
Everything's a comparison, right?
Okay.
If,
if you're painting your, your interior
of your house, like you put the swatches
up and compare it to what's there.
So in, in a lot of ways, a lot of
these things that you'll get to learn
are in contrast to what's normal.
Hmm.
You know, the big thing is like,
I haven't heard that ever before.
Like, that sounds crazy or
that looks really weird.
What's going on with
that magpie, the coyote.
And, and that's where it
really starts, um, for anybody.
And that's, it's pretty
simple, but it's very true.
And so the normal thing
you hear from coyotes.
Their chorus, how it sounds like
a group of yip yappy dogs down
the road that just wokes it up.
Right.
And it's like,
right.
Awesome.
People have heard that, you know,
if you're even in an urban setting,
like since like 2010, every urban
setting in North America that
is in Coyote Range has coyotes.
Mm-hmm.
You very may well have heard that in
Central Park or in LA or in Sacramento or
you know, Victoria, you know, take a pick.
You know, there's so many, um, coyotes
out there now, but it's not just noise.
Just like that.
Dawn Corro, you sort of referenced
that this time of year in the spring,
it's like they're saying stuff.
It's not in a language
that's like English.
It's a little different, but
they're still saying stuff.
Of course, at this time of
year, a lot of it's about.
Mating.
Right.
But there's a lot, lot more in there.
So that normal vocalization of the
coyote transitions into something
with a lot more barks, a great
greater intensity, more barks.
And to me, there's an upswing to
the vocalization and pitch that I
equate with the presence of a wolf.
And that's what I was listening to the
other day when I was walking with the dog.
And it, it sounds more like this,
and that, that upturn, um, really
is, is apparent to me having
listened to them for a while.
Hmm.
You know, just continue
listening, keep listening.
And if you don't have wolves
and coyotes around your place,
listen to the most common animal.
Listen to the most common thing.
The most common animal says.
And the reason I say that is
it, it rewires your neurology.
We are wired for detecting
this sort of stuff.
This is an ancient,
ancient, ancient skill.
And to use it effectively,
you have to be exposed, right?
So expose yourself to
deciphering patterns.
What's normal, what's weird in
the most common things around you,
whether that's in a city, a suburb,
a wilderness area, what is normal?
So when something breaks outta that,
it's like the diamond in the rough.
You're like, Hey, that's different.
And there's a reason talk is cheap, but it
still costs something for these animals.
Like they can expose themselves
and they're gonna get killed
if they say something, right?
So there's still a risk
and a, and a drain on them.
So they're doing it for a reason.
And our job then is just
to be good observers.
You know, none of this is magic.
How big?
Standing next to somebody.
And I said, I think, uh.
I think a bald eagle might be coming.
It'll, it, it's probably over there
and a minute or two later it shows
up and they're like, dude, wow, dude.
Like that's, that's like
shamanism or something.
I'm like, no, it's not
it, it really is not.
It's just better observation.
So like checking yourself though,
you start to figure something out.
Look for that shifts.
And for that day I was walking the dog
just like five minutes later I hear, Ooh,
up that same drainage.
I'm like, oh, yep, okay.
Pretty good odds that I
was right on that one.
And the more you start to pay attention,
the more of these, these seeming
coincidences will, will start to crop up.
I think that's a really good point that
you talk about, which is establishing
a baseline, seeing what's normal and
looking for the absence of normal.
And that's something that they'll teach
to law enforcement, to military troops.
Totally.
A friend of mine was a sniper,
British army, uh, and who's in
Afghanistan, and he'd say, you know,
we'd look for the absence of normal
if we don't hear dogs barking.
Dogs barking is normal, then we
know Talibans in town and people
are, are operating in a certain way.
They're bringing their dogs inside.
And, and that was a key indicator
when the dogs weren't barking.
Yep, yep.
You're absolutely right.
And that's there, there's, it's been
called different things throughout the
years, but the most current vernacular
for some of these higher order senses
to those little shifts is, is referred
to as Spidey sense, you know, the us.
Mm-hmm.
Military is referred to as that.
And in the past they've
found that, um, the.
The people who are most proficient
at trusting and acting on their
spidey sense are military.
Mm.
Um, or ex, let me back up.
When they go in the military, the
backgrounds that most help them are
rural kids who hunt and fish, and urban
kids who live around gang violence.
And, and I think this speaks to a
lot of what we miss because it's in
the, the subconscious realm, right.
We're, we're always gathering an infinite
amount of information through our senses
passively that we don't even realize.
Mm-hmm.
And all of a sudden you get this,
ah, let's, you know, I know we
said we were gonna hunt this ridge,
but let's, let's drop off into
that, that drainage over there.
Why?
Like, I don't know.
Let's
mm-hmm.
I just feel like it.
You know, and as an artist, I think I,
I make the analogy of someone walking
into a gallery and they're looking at a
painting of a, a mule deer or an elk or a,
a cowboy, and something's not right there.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they might not
be able to identify it, but
they know something is off.
And it might be something as
simple as there's no birds singing
over there on that side of that
ridge and there are over there.
Mm-hmm.
And, and we, as human beings, as an
animal ourselves, we act on these same
impulses and stimuli in the same way.
And so coming to realize that consciously
and starting to intentionally dive
into these things and amplify your
ability to then not just make good
choices, but know why and, and what for.
You know, women, they say have
women's intuition and guys,
guys have gut feelings, right?
Yeah.
But often guys, they wanna
quantify things, right?
A woman's like, uh, no, my intuition
says no, and I'm listening to it.
And, uh, research has shown that
women tend to listen to those
gut feelings, that intuition.
Just because,
yeah,
just because whereas guys
will be like, you know, I feel
like something's off here.
Like, I walked into this bar and
it's full of full patch bikers.
But, um, yeah, you know, you know,
they're minding their own business
and I'm, I'm not a threat to them.
I'm not doing anything.
And they'd start going through and I'm a
tough guy and I can take care of myself.
Whereas maybe their gut's saying.
This isn't the place for you right now.
Right?
Um, all the signs are there,
everything's around them, but they
haven't quite quantified what it is yet.
And Gavin Becker wrote this book
called The Gift of Fear, and it
talks about people who've been
in horrific crime instances and
how all of the signs are there.
And afterwards they say, oh, I
should have known because this, or
I should have known 'cause of that.
Well, if you should have known
'cause of these things, it means
they're there to begin with, right?
Maybe we just trust our gut.
And if I'm out hunting or looking
for animals, or even just looking for
things, whether it's something I've
misplaced in my house, I find if I,
if I lean on my gut feeling side, um,
some people call it manifest destiny.
Oh, you manifested it, you made
it, you've set it up in your
head, and then there you go.
And that's why it happened.
Well, other people say, well, no, all the
signs were there and you picked up on 'em
and you just weren't able to quantify it.
Whatever the, whatever the reason is.
It still leads to the same conclusion.
Right?
I, I re I remember a hunting trip
early on, uh, moose Hunt and a
older, I think it was Austrian
fellow, ended up bumping into him.
And he says to the group, you guys,
what you're doing wrong is you're
thinking, I want to find a moose.
I want to find a moose, and
the moose will take off.
You have to think happy thoughts, he
says, and we're like, who is this?
What is this guy going on about?
Right?
But we thought, okay,
we'll give it a shot.
Is what happens.
Moose comes walking into camp, right?
So, uh, uh, was that coincidence?
Was there something, uh, weird going on?
Um, and before I, and I'm talking
for a bit here, but there's, there's
two other points on that thing.
'cause you talk about the subconscious
realm, uh, Nikki Van Shindell, um,
past podcast guest who was on this.
Show called Alone where they
drop you off in the wild.
She survived, I think it was 52 days
or something out in the Arctic before
she was medically pulled because uh,
I guess she just wasn't eaten and
lost too much weight and they said,
oh, we're concerned for your health.
But she would say, I was taught.
When I go into the wild, as
cheesy as it sounds, I say,
hello Forest, it's me, Nikki.
And I put my arms wide open and I
introduce myself and she says, for
whatever reason when I do that, the
little brown birds stop chirping me.
And the squirrels stop alarming me and.
And I thought, well, it's interesting.
I don't quite get what
might be going on here.
And it wasn't until I had Chance
Burs on the podcast and he was
talking about equine therapy.
And he says he, he uses it
for his PTs, ds, uh, soldier.
And he says, you know, I walk into a
paddock and the horses they know right
away they got that wildness to them.
They know if something off on you.
And I'm thinking, okay, things
are starting to click here.
If that wild animal can pick up
right away on something that's going
on, this vibe that you're giving
off, what are real wild animals do
and how far can that vibe transmit?
Yeah.
So I'll put that over to you.
Yeah.
Farther than you think.
And it's not bs.
It is not bs.
I think a lot of those, and a lot
of traditional cultures, land-based
cultures, there are taboos or customs
about the way you enter the woods,
the way you enter the water, the
way you enter the grassland, and.
Um, at the outset, I think they do appear
pretty oversimplified and maybe silly.
Um, but at the same time, those
practices have stuck around because I
would argue they, they orient your mind
around being where you actually are.
You know, so many of us are not where we
physically reside in this very moment.
Yeah.
Like, think about it, like,
oh, I gotta check my text.
Oh, shoot, God, she told me pick up
this and that at the store, and oh, hey,
what are you, you know, like, you're,
you're constantly barrage mm-hmm.
From inside with all this shit.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And what you miss is that sparrow
over there is now jumping up in
the tree about four feet, or in the
shrub and screaming its head off.
Mm-hmm.
Because something.
If you look closer and you were
not in your head, you would realize
there's a weasel over there.
You wanna go see it?
Now?
How many times have you seen a weasel?
How many times have you seen a
weasel when you were looking for it?
Mm.
Now, if you're a photographer, think
about, you know, if you're shooting
wildlife, like wish, what if you could
know what direction it was going,
what was before you could ever see it?
Get ahead of it, sit down and get
that shot of a lifetime with the
animal looking the other direction.
Like, that's, that's the holy grail.
But when you start paying attention
to this stuff, you realize
that there are so many nuances
that give away your intentions.
Um, there, there's a classic story in
the field of animal behavior referred
to the Kluger as the Kluger Hans Effect.
And to put it in, uh, a snapshot.
Basically, there's this horse in Austria
that in the early 19 hundreds could do
math, could tell time, could uh, predict
things, could use a calendar, tell someone
the date of something or, you know,
all number of things That, and Andrew
crowds, like thousands of people would
go to these community and, you know,
fairs to watch this horse perform magic.
Right?
And they had this whole, they had the
kluger Hans commission to see if it
was legit, like horse trainers, circus,
you know, um, leaders, trainers,
calvary officers, school teachers.
He was legit.
They couldn't, couldn't disprove this.
Hmm.
And ultimately there was a fellow
who started studying it after
they kind of handed it off and he
said, no, there's something here
that this horse is keying in on.
And what he found was is he moved
the person who was interacting
with the horse away from the horse.
'cause basically what they
do is hold up a card, right?
Mm-hmm.
With a question on it.
And the horse would tap its foot for
the number of times for the answer.
But the further per part, that
person was from the horse, the
less accurate the horse was.
Like, he was like 90
plus percent accurate.
It was like insane.
This, this non-human being was doing
all this stuff, but it started to
erode when the person was further away.
And what they finally realized was, a,
if the person holding the car didn't
know the answer, neither did Kluger Hans.
Interesting.
And.
What happened was, and and Conrad Loren,
one of the greats in the world of animal
behavior study had documented this in
other places, is that we ourselves are
giving signals we don't know we are.
And in this case, the handler, the owner,
when he started this, he would have the
card, he would hold it up for Kluger Hans.
And as the horse got close to the
answer, he would very slightly
raise on the balls of his feet.
He might tip his head head and he
had a big grim hat back slightly.
And then he'd drop almost imperceptively
when the horse hit the right answer.
And these tiny gestures that
thousands and thousands of
other human beings have missed.
This horse was picking up with such, you
know, this is another species and it is
reading those gestures so acutely as to
give the impression it can do algebra.
Crazy.
And so it, we are doing that when
you're going into the woods to
hunt and go after that animal,
you have the predator mindset.
Mm-hmm.
If you are a photographer and you've got
that big, huge glass eye and you're going
after that thing for the shot, granted
it's non consumptive, I don't care, but
you're still acting like a predator.
Mm-hmm.
And so a lot of cultures have this taboo
about even talking about going hunting.
They will say, I'm going for a
long walk with a quiver full of
arrows or something like that.
Right.
Because when you see stuff, you're
like, oh, that's when I'm actually like
laid back and not, you know, have no
agenda and I'm just wandering totally.
And oh my gosh, totally.
The moose is right there.
Yep.
Right.
And, and that sort of breaks down
those nearly imperceptible to
us signals as modern humans that
these wild animals whose lives.
Clearly depend on reading those gestures.
Mm-hmm.
The way you stand, the way you look Like,
we can tell if someone's paying attention
to us when we're in a conversation.
Mm-hmm.
But that conversation goes much
further than even our own species.
And like for a great example, I was,
we had a mountain lion come through the
yard, um, a couple springs ago and it was
like the last perfect snow for tracking.
I was like, canceled everything.
I'm going on this track, I
don't care how far it goes.
Mm-hmm.
And I ended up, up following it for
about four and a half miles and up
about a couple thousand feet into
the mountains behind our place here.
But one of the neatest discoveries along
that route was not far from the house.
I'm following along the trail and
I, I start just playing mind games.
I'm like, alright, the
cat's going this route.
Can I predict exactly where it's
gonna walk in this drainage?
You know, is it gonna cut down
through there along the creek?
Is it gonna cross the creek?
Is he gonna go over here
near the dug fur trees?
And I literally, I'm kind of getting low
and looking at the tracks looking, trying
the best I can from the cat's eye level.
'cause a lot of hunters will know if
you're, you know, you're losing a blood
trail, you gotta get to the animal's level
mm-hmm.
Their eye eye level.
And you're like, oh, there's
the hole it ran through.
And then you, oh, yep.
Yeah.
There's the blood and you keep going.
Mm-hmm.
I was doing that and all of a sudden I
noticed the Chickies Townsend solitaire,
and there was a robin in there.
All immediately started alarming at me
where they'd been doing nothing before.
Interesting.
So, and I've had this happen a ton of
times, but this just happens to be one
of the, one of the fun, fun ones here is
that by virtue of trying to get my head
inside that lion's head and getting down
at its level and moving through that place
the way the cat would've, these birds in
essence acted the way they would around.
Catlike threat is the way I that,
and so we have to think about that
as, as someone who's hiking or biking
or hunting or anything, is what
are you projecting into this world?
First off, you start realizing when you
pay attention to this stuff, these animals
are paying acute attention to each other.
Even if they, the chicken e
doesn't speak the nut Hatch's
language or the Robins language.
It is definitely listening
and interpreting what it is
in those other bird sounds.
Mm-hmm.
So that's there, but then what you start
realizing is they are commenting on you as
much as anything from the moment or even
before you hit the trail head and you open
the door, like sometimes it's your car.
Mm-hmm.
Like I had a friend who, he
was a falconer and he, um.
And I don't think this
made it in the book.
He, he didn't have much to practice
and train his, he had a goshawk on, you
know, so what he'd do is, and he was in,
in college, uh, in Colorado, was he'd
drive off campus and he'd drive by, and
there's this one, I think it was a church.
He said they'd drive by and
there's always crows in the yard.
And he'd open the door.
He had a friend drive.
He'd open the window actually and
throw the goss hawk out and it
would hammer one of these crows.
Right.
And they'd go ballistic, you know, if
anybody's ever seen crows go something.
Yeah.
It happened around this.
Mm-hmm.
And he, um.
He only got to do that 2, 3, 4, maybe
five times before the crows were like,
ah, ah, ah, that pickup, that Toyota
pickup with the cap on the topper uhhuh.
You know?
So he had to start changing vehicles.
Really?
I believe that
because, I
believe that
because the crows would follow him
like he talked about one day pulling
into the grocery store and there's
just this cloud of angry crows over top
of him, and some guy walks outta the
store and looks at him, you know, as
if to say, what the hell did you do?
You know?
Yep.
And these crows remembered.
And so I, I just imagine
and pity the people that.
Loaned him cars that are like driving,
gonna the pharmacy, like, what
the hell is with all these crows?
I believe it.
Yeah.
That's what you get for, for
letting him borrow your car.
Totally.
So that stuff's out there in,
in really fine minute ways.
That's just so fun when you start
realizing those connections.
You know, my neighbor, uh, had
a battle going with some crows.
Oh,
and tried, tried to, uh,
kill one, or he did kill one.
I don't know what, what was going on.
But, uh, he says, I hate these things.
They keep following me
up and down the road.
They're all over my vehicle and
they're, they're, they're crafting.
Meanwhile in, this is in our old house,
um, something alerted our cameras.
I said, what's going on?
And my wife goes out, she looks and
she looks at the garbage, and I sh, I
think we still got the clip somewhere
'cause it scared the crap out of her.
But there's some, uh, baby crow in the,
in the, uh, in the garbage there that
had, I don't know how it got in there.
It was alive.
And so, of course it.
Anyways, we let the thing out.
It's, uh, had these
deep kind of blue eyes.
It was pretty young.
And, um, um, anyways, eventually it goes
off and it's with, with these other crows.
And now these were neighbors, hated
my neighbor would follow 'em up and
down, would come in and seemingly
have friendly gestures around us.
And, uh, he couldn't understand.
He is like, I don't know what's
going on with these sakes, but
these crows are bloody intelligent.
Yeah.
And I, and I, I spent some time, number
one, trying to befriend crows and ravens
and, uh, it takes a long time to even
get a little bit of trust from them.
Yeah.
Uh, but, but they're, they're quick
and they start, they start clueing in.
And I've also spent a bit of time
trying to understand what they're
saying, and I'm, I'm not there yet.
Like we did a, uh, elk hunt
this last year and, um.
And they, there's this one area where
we were successful and we knew there's
more elk in the area 'cause another
team was successful and there's, I think
there's three elk down in this area.
And anyways, the ravens in there were
just just going crazy and so loud and, and
we figured, well, like are we ever gonna
see, we didn't see any more elk in there.
Like are we, it was a beautiful
area, a great couple wallows around
there thinking like, is all of
this noise gonna scare off the elk?
Are the elk gonna be used
to it and come into this?
Like, we we're still
trying to figure it out.
Um
hmm.
What are your thoughts on that?
I don't know.
Fair enough.
I would have to pepper you with
a, a ton of questions that would
be too long for this podcast.
But there, it's interesting because
those, those questions don't always
have simple answers because it
really depends on where it is.
It really depends on, uh, when it is,
it really depends on who else is there.
Mm. And by who I mean everything.
Like, I'd guide here in Yellowstone
some, and in the past when I was
teaching a lot, um, you know, I
might be doing a wolf watching class.
Mm. You
know, I, people think we're
just gonna go watch wolves.
Well, we can't find them.
And like, what are the ducks doing?
Like what?
Mm.
Like we're, this is a wolf
class, we wanna watch wolves.
I'm like, no.
Everything else here adjusts
according to the circumstances
that are happening right now.
Mm-hmm.
In the.
And you see those ducks that
were just dabbling and feeding
in that pond over there.
Now they're all swimming
away from the pond edge.
Mm.
Do you see the coyote now?
Oh yeah.
Could that have been a wolf?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
You know, the bison react a certain way.
And so there's a lot to this.
Were those ravens that you were
watching, were they all residents?
Were some of them migratory?
Um, you know, the questions
could go on infinitum.
Mm-hmm.
Because it all matters.
As you start to realize, you know, we
kind of in high school and, you know,
middle school biology class always
learned that there's a web of life, well.
Mm-hmm.
This is a place where you
can actually touch it.
Mm-hmm.
It's not theoretical.
It's, it's a functional
thing, like tracking is great.
But the moment the, the elk steps
out of the mud, that track is a
sign of something in the past.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it was 10 seconds or 10 years
or 10 million years in the case of Dyna,
or 60 million years, 65 million years.
The case if it's dinosaur
tracks, you know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
Um, but sound, when you're eavesdropping
on these conversations, it's now all
of those factors are at play right now.
Mm-hmm.
Not at some point in the past.
So as you start to integrate
these different ways of knowing,
you figure out cool stuff.
So Norse mythology, they have
the wolves and the ravens.
Hunting together, and
Yeah,
I've, I've seen it, you know, hunting,
like the ravens will be drawn to
a gut pile and they'll make noise.
Okay.
So there's an animal down.
I think, and this is just my, my
supposition, that the ravens are smart
enough to know that if they want a
gut pile, they can direct, let's say
a wolf or a hunter towards an animal.
And I've found success in the past,
hunting by listening to the ravens
and looking at the direction.
It's like, are you trying
to guide me somewhere?
And I'll, I'll talk to 'em like that.
And, uh, anyways, I'll, uh, I'll
follow 'em along and sure enough,
I'll, I'll find success that way.
Not always, but, uh, yeah.
Enough that it's been noticeable.
Yeah.
And this is exactly why it's stuck in so
many cultural traditions, is it's there.
You know, if you're asked some of
the scientists out there, no, no.
You know, the data does not support
that wolves are drawn to prey
or, you know, carrying by ravens.
Well, it's not quite true.
You know, when you think about the
way a lot of sciences done these
days, let's say a master's or a PhD
program, how long does that last?
Mm-hmm.
There's very few long-term
studies of almost anything.
Mm-hmm.
That goes beyond four or five, six years.
10, 20, 30 years.
When you think about how indigenous
cultures operated around the world, they
were observing this stuff and passing it
on for not years, not even decades, but.
Thousands of years.
Mm-hmm.
And these things that are
kept and codified in their
lore are there for a reason.
It's to help your kids survive.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
And so, yeah, there are instances
where actually Behren Heinrich, one
of the world's authorities on Ravens,
uh, published an account of a woman.
It was either in Colorado or maybe here
in Montana, who was in her backyard.
And this raven was going nuts, making
all this weird noise and stuff.
And all of a sudden she saw a
mountain lion in the bushes along
her property, you know, and she's
like, it saved me, you know?
And Jim was telling me the line was there.
And Barr and, and my own interpretation of
things like that, that I've seen are like.
That's, that's nice.
What that probably was was like
the raven going like, yes, yes.
Better.
Better.
That's true.
We're about to eat.
I, you know, it's hard 'cause we,
obviously, we aren't interviewing
ravens, but the point being is they,
they have enough and, and documented
predictive power within those powerful
brains that are every bit as sharp
as, as chimpanzees or, or more.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they, they remember stuff.
They remember you, especially
if you've done something wrong,
maybe for the rest of their lives.
And these birds that are living a decade,
20 years, maybe they're operating on
that every single day of their lives.
So, you know, I was, I was hiking
with a friend and we took off
into the mountains, just north of
Yellowstone here, near our home.
And, uh, we split up.
He was wanting to see if
he could find some sheds.
Or maybe a, a, a skull from a
bull elk that died in the winter.
And we arranged to meet at the head
of this drainage, and I'm like,
all right, I'm gonna go up there.
I'm gonna follow this elk trail.
I'm gonna, you know, I'll, I'll just
hang out and wait for you to, to come.
And I'm sitting there and I knew he was
getting close and we had two-way radios.
I said, Hey, are you, are you coming?
You know, he is like, oh yeah, I
just stopped for a snack and sat
down for a second, pull off a layer
and, and, um, put it in my pack.
And all of a sudden, this
raven is making this sound.
And I've told him enough of, you
know, the sort of stuff that I dig
into with ravens that he radios and
says, is that thing talking to you?
And I, and I radioed back.
I said, are you sure it's
not talking about you?
And as I'm sitting there waiting for him.
I just happened to look up and
up the bowl of this drainage and
is a broking mule.
Deer buck still had his antlers
on, and they only do that when
there's something bad going down.
But he was running toward,
actually in my direction, in
the direction of the drainage.
I'm like, huh, what the
hell's going on there?
And there was a ridge, small little
ridge in the bowl right before the creek.
So he, he went behind
that and disappeared.
I'm like, oh, I won't even
mention it to this buddy.
'cause he, he probably won't see it.
Well, seconds later he says, oh my gosh.
Mul deer ran right across the
creek right in front of me.
You know, like, he was like,
maybe a hundred meters down.
Yeah.
And I'm like, awesome.
Cool.
I saw that thing coming down the
hill and I glance up again and I
catch movement and it was so fast.
I, I got the ox up, but I,
I couldn't quite see it.
I just saw what was dark.
Mm.
But it wasn't another deer.
And I'm like, stay right there.
Stay right there.
I don't know if this is a wolf or a
lion or something's coming right there.
Stay right there at that crossing.
And then he radios back
like minutes later.
He is like, oh my God.
It was a lion.
And he, it was so close that he got
photos with his iPhone unaided like,
wow.
He's like, check this out.
You know?
Wow.
And I really, really wonder
because it's matched similar ones.
But going back to that idea of
how often and how long research is
done, I've heard that call maybe
half a dozen times over the last decade,
huh?
Right.
Interesting.
Think of trying to arrange a
PhD study around that call.
Right.
Like you, good
luck
you.
You're good luck finding
funding for that buddy.
Right?
You do.
But if you pay attention out there,
it's like the last time I heard
something like this, this happened.
Mm-hmm.
So let's pay attention again.
Holy cow.
Something really similar
just happened again.
And so you can see over the span
of hundreds or thousands of years,
people are like, yeah, you need to
really listen to, to the Ravens.
I was on a spring bear hunt a number
of years ago with my wife, and we're
coming down from one location and we see.
A, a whitetailed deer
kind of in front of us.
And I thought, oh, this is kind of neat.
We'll just watch it for a bit.
It's springtime, it's, it's a non-game
species here for us, but, and it
just kept walking up and looking,
walking up and looking, and I'm like,
oh, I wonder how close it'll get.
And then it looks like it's
gonna go into the bushes.
And then I'm like, well,
let's see if I can, I got a
little, little dough call here.
Let's see if I can make some noises
and see how it reacts if I could
talk with this thing, or, or what.
So I'm, I'm making these noises and then
it's coming back and it's interesting.
It's trying to figure out what's going on.
And in the distance I hear what
sounds like a, um, like a little
elk call, you know, those little
squeeze calls that then that's it.
There you
Yeah,
that's right.
Kind of like that.
I hear the sound every time.
Every time I give a little, uh, uh,
ble on this thing, I'm like, oh, that.
That's weird.
I wonder what that is.
Right?
And then the deer goes off into
the bushes a little bit and can't
quite see it, and we hear this other
thing moving and getting closer.
And I go to my wife, I'm like,
that's not moving like an ungulate.
It's not moving like a deer.
That sounds like a bear, right?
And, uh, anyways, I said, well, let's
get ready because you might have
a bear here, but what the hell's
making that that does it sound?
And then we see it's just flash of, um,
this tawny colored go screaming across.
And I'm, I'm mentally trying to
process 'cause we're, we got so
many black bears in their area.
The color phase, phase ones
are few and far between.
And I'm thinking cougar or what?
Like, it was just outta the corner
of the eye flashed through and, and
like, what the, what's going on?
And anyways, then it came running back
and it was about 20 yards from us just.
Giant grizzly bear.
Wow.
And I've never heard a grizzly bear
make that noise before, but it was, wow.
It, it was a really weird
experience and I, and I captured it.
You can hear it.
Uh, 'cause I was filming the, uh,
the deer and I crank the audio a
little bit and you can hear the noise
that the, uh, the grizzlies making.
And maybe I'll send it over afterwards.
Oh, I'd
love to hear that.
That's awesome.
It, it was just a, it was an
odd experience and number.
We can't hunt grizzlies
in British Columbia.
We've got a moratorium on it.
So we're in a situation now where we've
got an animal that we don't wanna have
around us, especially at 20 yards.
And it was standing there looking, it
was like, okay, let's hope it get, gave
it a couple shouts and off of wind.
But, uh, uh, that, that was, I thought,
kind of an interesting experience.
Oh,
wow.
Yeah.
When it's fun that some research,
like a friend of mine, um, John
Young had written a book in 2012
called What the Robin Knows.
Like, there's very few books that talk
about what we're talking about here.
You can't find it very readily at all.
Um, like there's a book, uh, written
by a English gentleman, Jim Corbitt.
Uh, called Jungle Lore.
Most people would be
familiar with his book.
Um, the Man Eating Tigers of Kon.
Right, okay.
In related titles.
Right.
But he could kill the man eating
tigers when droves of, of horse and,
uh, hunters on feet, uh, on foot
and on the backs of elephants could
not corral these, these tigers.
And through that language of the
environment, he by himself could go in and
find these lions, or excuse me, tigers.
And, um, he talks about a lot of these
things in detail, which he grew up hanging
out with the indigenous folks in that area
who had that background and that history
to say, yeah, you, this stuff's worth.
Checking into, but the
contemporary science wasn't there.
Like John had a hard time finding much
at all to back up what he'd experienced.
You know, it was fun meeting him.
'cause he, he and I both came at it
similarly in that we noticed different
things and we filled in different
pieces of this picture for each other.
But, um, modern Science
hadn't really been doing that.
And since he wrote that book and
up to the time I wrote mine, like,
there's so much out there now.
You can't keep up with it.
Mm.
Like they've even found, there was a paper
I ran across of, I think it was Ocelots
in South America mimicking monkeys.
Wow.
As a hunting strategy.
Wow.
Yeah.
And, um, moth, moth larvae,
caterpillars screaming
really
in high frequency tones that mimic the.
Code, red alarm call that birds
make when there's a fast moving
predator imminently upon 'em.
Ah.
So you start seeing like
this spy versus spy.
Right.
And some of it thankfully is, is
documented in some of the newer scientific
research, which at times does trickle
down into the popular literature.
So we can be like, oh yeah,
actually that that is a thing.
Mm-hmm.
That is possible.
I had an indigenous woman one time
tell me that she swears that whenever
the squirrels are alarming her,
the whole area is burnt, she might
as well move or go somewhere else.
Yep.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Okay.
Pretty much, you know, and, and in
the scientific literature there's
still kind of debate over like,
okay, when a, a red squirrel does,
right?
Mm-hmm.
That's most often labeled
as a ground predator.
Versus when they go,
you know that higher pitch stuff?
Yeah.
Something in the air.
But so tell them, do we see that stuff,
you know, as one photographer friends,
and he's one of the rare ones that
actually pays attention to this stuff.
He's like, yeah, one
in 13, 12 or 13 times.
Do you hear alarms like that?
Do you actually get to
see what's causing it?
Right.
But you really remember it that one time
that you do see or hear that and you're
like, okay, last time, you know, you
just like we were talking about before.
Um, but the squirrels, they are
not clueless as to what these
others squirrels are saying.
Yeah.
They might be squawking at each other
at times, but there's a difference.
I don't know that exact difference,
but I do know that, yeah, you don't
even have to get in the woods and
the squirrels are going berserk.
The cool thing to know
though, is that as you.
Spend time out there figuring out
what the normal is, the more, how
should we say this best, the more
that your nervous system and your
awareness settles into a pattern that
you start to not be seen as a threat.
Mm-hmm.
So a great example of this is with
chickies, like we can actually monitor
and count, like the guys out there
who wanna want, want some data.
Yeah.
Play with this.
If you're in the area
with black cap chickies,
which we are,
go for a walk.
You go for a walk and you
hear Chick Chick, you can eat.
Eat, okay?
Mm-hmm.
This is not their song.
The song is the.
That's right.
Right.
Yeah.
That's the song you hear in Spring.
But Chick EDD is used for a lot of
stuff, but it's often used as an alarm.
The severity of the alarm is indicated
by the number of Ds in the chain.
Interesting.
So like when I walk with my dog,
Hobbes, he's a goofy black Labrador,
a hundred pounds of, of nuts.
So, you know, he is running through
the creek and you know, picking up
sticks that are way too big for him.
And you know,
you know, four to six if I count,
Hmm.
If I go by myself and leave
him at home, he's pissed.
Mm-hmm.
But what I hear is chickadee.
Took it.
And, and, and mind you, I'm not walking
like I'm going to an office meeting.
Mm-hmm.
I'm walking, like I've got Saturday
to myself and I'm just wandering.
Hmm.
That, that agenda, that hike to
the top of the mountain mo marks
you as a predator in essence.
So with the wander, I'm getting
alarmed at the way a coyote
does when it's just walking.
It's not hunting.
It's just traveling, not hurting anybody.
It's still of concern,
but it's not screaming.
Bloody murder a threat.
Right.
Yeah.
So there are times, actually one time
with our dogs that preceded Hobbes and
I were walking back through this area
that we often encounter the chickadees.
We hear chick,
I'm like, holy.
I'm like, something's going on.
What?
What is going on here?
I am not like packing heat,
trying to mow down chickadees.
Like, what the hell is this?
The dog's right next to me.
He's not like wrestling, chickadees and
chewing up their kids and like, and outta
the corner of my eye, I catch in the
far Aspen grove, a blue bit of movement,
blue gray streak of a Cooper's Hawk,
huh?
Going through the area.
That's what they were talking about.
So that was true.
Code red, you know, or very, very, very.
Um, concerning development in the area.
They have a very high pitched,
I can't even hear it with
my hearing damage anymore.
High pitched
kind of call.
Mm-hmm.
That's what those caterpillars do.
'cause that means is right on top of
me and it has a ventricular quality
to the, a lot of high frequency sounds
are hard to pinpoint, and that's part
of the physics of sound is that some
of these things are designed that way.
They use them because, as opposed to a
low pitch sound, like the, you know, it's
hard to pinpoint high, high frequencies
defract and break down really quickly over
distance and they're hard to pinpoint.
Hmm.
So all these layers, these gorgeous
layers are, are, are moving in and out
and around you every time you go outside.
And even before you go outside, like,
we had a Raven study going on here,
and I was helping out, we were trying
to capture ravens, which is one of the
hardest damn jobs you can ever imagine.
Yes,
yes.
Because they're so smart.
Mm-hmm.
And we put this dead squirrel
in the, this was in Yellowstone.
So we put the dead squirrel in the pull
out behind the car we're in, and we set
the trap up and cover it with newspaper.
Like it's just a big pile of garbage.
Right.
And we sit there and this
raven like flies by you.
A lot of birds just,
they'll, they'll fly by.
Mm-hmm.
The, the Ravens were looking
not at the car, but in it.
Mm.
They're like,
who's in it?
Why are you just sitting there?
Mm-hmm.
I'm totally anthropomorphizing,
but you know, sure.
In many ways we have that in us
because it does help us make the leap,
you know, to not anthropomorphize.
We we're actually probably missing things.
And so what it seemed like
was this bird was like.
Dude, you're acting shifty.
Mm-hmm.
You guys should have gone out
of the vehicle long ago and been
hiking somewhere around here.
I'm just gonna go over, and it did,
went about 200 meters on a low hill,
sat on top of a rock and just watched.
Mm-hmm.
We didn't catch any ravens.
It's spotting the absence of normal.
It is established a baseline.
People usually get outta their vehicles.
That's not normal,
you know?
Exactly.
Now, if we were having lunch, we got out
and we were having lunch and you know,
chips were flying and, you know, baloney
sandwiches, like it would've been all in.
It would've been right there with us right
now.
Now the, uh, to be like the oracle from
the Matrix where she says, what's really
gonna bake your noodle is would, you've
knocked over that glass if we didn't.
So if you got out and you had a
sandwich and had your lunch and
got out like you're normally doing.
Would there be non-verbal sort
of vibes that you still give
off because you're trying to get
that raven despite acting it?
I don't know.
They've seemed to feel like
they've documented that Dogs
know when we I are insincere.
Hmm.
You know, we, we use the same
words, but they seem to know
we're BSing them, you know?
And, and how do they know?
Is it, is there a tone?
Uh, is it eye contact?
Is there amount of eye contact or
a, a stilted way we move or stand?
It's hard to say, but the one thing is
you dive into this world of understanding
wildlife and even our own pets.
They're a great place to start
learning a lot of this stuff.
Um, how many people have noticed
your dog has a different bark for
the UPS guy or the FedEx guy or
the regular mailman versus the
neighbor versus a family member?
Mm.
Like they're deciphering and
discerning and talking about
these differences all around us.
Mm-hmm.
And, and as you're paying attention to
these things, you start to actually begin
to get a picture of how you are perceived.
Just the o yesterday was a great example.
My wife and I, I was, I was in a funk.
I was working in the studio.
Whatever was going through my head,
I was just not in the right place.
I'm like, yeah, we need to go for a walk.
You know, we do this for
each other, you know?
Yep.
She drags me out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And within half an hour,
I'm, I'm good again.
But when you're in that funk,
things don't wanna be around you.
Yes.
They just, they're just
like, there's nothing there.
I. Yeah.
Or if you do run into something,
they're like, yeah, let, lemme
just go over there, go over here.
You, you figure out your
crap, whatever that is.
Yeah.
You know, and I, the way
back people'll figure that
out.
We go hiking on the way back,
we run into a group of seven
mule deer, get to sit down.
They're pretty much all around us
feeding, grazing two young bucks
and one older and one younger.
We go back right before we get to
the car, there's a red fox sitting
on the hill right there and just
walks across in front of us.
And I'm like, you know, once
or twice this happens, you're
like, eh, what a coincidence.
But over enough time of paying attention
to this sort of thing, you, you're like,
I bet whatever I was putting out there at
the start of this was pushing things away.
And on the way back.
Mellowed out.
And, you know, it can easily
be blown off, but I encourage
listeners to, to play with it.
Even, even role play.
You
know, be Dr. Jekyll versus
Mr. Hyde and just see how your
yardbirds behave around you.
You know, we know that they
behave different towards our
dog versus the neighbor dog.
We know that the mag pies respond
differently to our neighbor's
grandson than they do the
other kid in the neighborhood.
'cause the grandson shoots at him.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, you can hear it.
It's like, oh, Brian must be around.
Yeah.
You know, but that's, that's a very, um,
kind of obvious example, but I think as
you start observing, you start seeing
these subtler layers of it manifest.
And to, into, to be honest,
some pretty mysterious.
Stuff.
You know, anybody that spent a lot of
time around hunting big old bucks or
bulls, you're like, it just disappeared.
Or it somehow knew I was in the stand.
You know, I built that ground blind
months ago and it's been there.
The wind was right.
Mm-hmm.
And it just disappeared.
Like, what the hell is that?
That's you not being aware of the fact
that there's this entire community
talking about the status quo in
that very spot, in that moment.
And you are one of the topics of
conversation crows count five guys
go to into a blind three come out.
They know that there's
still somebody in there.
They count.
Wow.
Yeah.
They know days of the week.
You know, the, the Fri I wrote about a
friend, she worked as a, a playground
mom, you know, at this neighborhood
school across from her house.
And they'd have popcorn
every Friday for the kids.
The PTA would bring in popcorn, everybody.
Popcorn for the teachers,
popcorn for the kids.
And every morning on Friday,
the crows would line up on the
wires, on the school roof, on the
playground, just waiting for recess.
They know when the kids got their
popcorn and were of course spilling
it everywhere, and they got popcorn.
They
know, and she said one day it was
a holiday, but still a Friday.
Nobody was at school, but
the crows all showed up.
Mm.
So they don't have watches.
They don't have calendars, but
yet they're still keeping tabs
in ways that help 'em survive.
Well, you've talked about, I
think it was Marmite language,
and not just that they're talking.
But there's specificity to what they're
saying, that there's not just, there's a
person, there's a man, there's a man with
a hat, there's a man with a green hat.
Yeah.
Is that, I think most of that,
that's much more like cons.
Boko work on prairie dogs, our
yellow belly Marmite around here.
Definitely.
I think if I leaned into those more, I
would see more and hear more than them.
Okay.
But most of that work that you're
referring to is done, done by a
prairie dogs, an academic in Arizona.
Okay.
And it's astonishing the level of
detail that they talk about us in.
Do the chickies do that?
Do the sparrows?
Do the robins?
At some level, yeah, they do.
At what level?
I don't exactly know, but it's going on.
It would be foolish to not
allow them that capability.
You've, uh, so you, you talked about
your hearing damage and you wrote
about it as well and how oftentimes
people will look at things there.
I'm gonna do air brackets
here, there disabilities Yeah.
As, uh, as limiting factors,
but you've kind of went and gone
and reframed that a little bit.
Do you wanna talk about that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, uh, a great way
to kind of tee that up is to
say what a, a crow tribal elder
said to me once he was speaking.
I was at an in attendance when he was
speaking for a group of young autistic
folks, and he said, in our culture,
among our people, there is no disabled.
There is only alternately abled.
And I think that's the beautiful
way to view what so many of us.
Tell ourselves the stories we
tell ourselves about ourselves.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I can't sit around very long.
I gotta get up and move around.
I got a DHD, my mom said,
you know this, that I gotta
mm-hmm.
Have this.
I, I, I've got bad hearing.
I can't, I, I, I'm blind in this eye.
I, I pick your, pick your
compromised sense or ability
by age or accident or illness.
Like we all have them.
Mm-hmm.
The beauty though is those are
at the same time are, are gifts.
They are are gateways into seeing the
world in ways that other people don't.
And I think as a community, which we've
lost community as human beings Yes.
In this modern age, so we.
Categorize people and fit
people into roles rather than
capabilities and contributions.
Mm.
And I have from guns and power tools, I
have a right-handed shooter, left ear,
I can't hear much above 8,000 hertz.
Mm.
You know, you can test this, go on
YouTube and do a hearing test there.
And when I was writing the book,
I did that, my right ear, I can
get up to maybe like 12 or 14,000.
Most bird language though
is like 8,000 and less.
You know, it's actually,
and there's one proposal.
This is kind of interesting
that why is the human hearing
attenuated to the frequencies it is.
Hmm.
Versus what we actually speak, which is
actually far lower in that range of, I,
I'm gonna mess up the numbers right now
'cause I don't have 'em in front of me.
But let's say it's 2000 hertz, 2,500.
Sure.
Um.
Yet we can hear, we functionally use
up to 8,000 a lot and even above.
And one proposal is because
that's the range that where
most bird language takes place.
Hmm.
So maybe we are engineered by
these communal conversations
beyond our own species.
But, but getting back to the, the
topic at hand is, I've had so many
times, like, I know you've had things
with, with a DH, ADHD and Right.
Being medicated for it in the past.
And it's like, yeah, I've had students,
you know, come to classes and a and
a mother be like, you know, kind of
pulls me to the side like, Johnny
can't, you know, sit still very long
because he's got a DHD and you know,
you're probably gonna have to like,
you know, figure out something else for
him to do while the rest of the group.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm with you on this.
He is a superhero.
When you put a kid like that into nature.
Boom.
It's like you see what that
capability is actually for.
Mm-hmm.
He's no, he no notices.
Every bird, he knows the chipmunk
that ran through the whole
group that everybody else lost.
He's paying attention to the
cloud forms over there and
the direction they're moving.
Mm-hmm.
Like
on and on and on, be that
limitation is like so many things.
It's the flip side of
it is our superpowers.
Right.
And so for me, I can't hear
out of this ear very well.
Um,
and I would say this on the, on
the whole for everyone listening.
Yeah.
I can't listen.
I can't hear those birds the
way you're talking about.
And I can't get around very much to
see what that alarm call was for.
It's like, that's okay.
You know, eel Wilson the great.
You know, biologists from Harvard,
he probably would've studied birds
or butterflies, but he got poked
in the eye and blinded, and that
actually paved the way for him to
be one of the, the greatest of the
greats in the world of ant research.
But things like island bio,
geography, you know, central tenets
to what a lot of our understanding
of ecologies based on probably
would've happened if he was perfect.
And none of us are perfect.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
So for me, I learned to listen
to the patterns I could hear.
And, and this is the same
for all of you listening.
It's not what you can hear.
It's not what you can see.
It's not what you can smell.
It's what you do with what you
can see, what you can hear.
Mm-hmm.
And what you can smell.
And because of your own
unique chemistry and, and.
How you're put together, you
are gonna see it different.
Yeah.
And that's the real benefit to all of
us is we learn way more much faster
when we do these things as a group.
So if you can, you know, make
it easy, this stuff really isn't
that hard to start learning.
And it amounts to like
leaving a window open
mm-hmm.
For getting to that time of
year in the Northern Hemisphere.
It's like you're eating
breakfast, but open the window.
Mm.
Ask your kids, man.
Kids show you stuff you miss all the time.
Right?
Sure.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I bought this
property 20 years ago and I never noticed
that shrub or that rock and good job, son.
Yes.
Right.
There you go.
But you know, it was really clearly
outlined to me when I, I finally, um.
I wrote a small grant proposal
and got funded to go visit.
My friend was now my friend
John Young, I hadn't met him.
I'd only read his books and heard a few
of his tapes, and I went for an advanced
bird language class of his in California.
Totally new area.
I didn't know the birds, you know,
so I had to study up before I went.
But he, what he did was ingenious, like
how there was like 70 people there, and
I've been doing most of this stuff myself.
I'm like, I don't know
how this is gonna work.
Like 70 people trying to sneak
up on a bird or something.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
What he did, and again, it's just genius,
is everybody was broken up into, I don't
know, groups of like six to eight, and
we're all assigned a certain spot on
this ground that covered multiple acres,
we'll say 10 acres, and everybody went
to their spot and we sat for an hour.
No longer, no, no less an hour.
Yeah.
And then we got together and like
people, like my closest group mates
were like, I'm not kidding Travis.
They were like 12 feet away.
Mm-hmm.
20 feet away, 30 feet away.
And I'm like, uh, we're, we're
just gonna see the same stuff.
Uh, uh, not at all.
We got together after that
to debrief what we found.
I didn't see any of the stuff they saw.
Wow.
They didn't see what I saw or heard.
It was like astonishing.
I'm like, holy crap.
Like she was 12 feet away.
Mm-hmm.
How did I not see that?
You, you think you're, you're aware
of more than you are and you're not
interesting.
And so what then blew my mind was all 70,
all of those other groups came together.
So for instance, like I'd heard what I
thought on the edge of my hearing was
the bird just going nuts behind me.
You know, I even like turned and like.
I couldn't see anything.
It was kind of a wall of green, but I,
I was hearing something I, I told the
group and Yeah, I think I heard that too.
Said one of the other
people, but no conclusion.
Hmm.
When all those groups came together,
the group that was just to the
north of us were like, holy crap.
This sharpen hawk came in and
just narrowly missed this toy,
and everybody went bananas.
And then it was dead silence.
And then the sharpen hawk, I
then realized, flew just east
of me behind me, causing those
alarms and on a down the line.
And this other group was like, holy cow.
Yeah.
We saw it right after it went through
there, it came by us and it chased
this j and, and this whole picture
emerged that I had this tiny little
fragment of that would mm-hmm.
You could see any of us would
be like, ah, blow that off.
Mm-hmm.
Like, oh, it's squawked.
Yeah.
That's different, but.
What it reminds me to do then is
like, no, that Robin is chirping.
So the one was doing this morning
at dawn, and the tree's right
near the house, it wasn't singing
and nobody else was talking.
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, go.
I don't know, I didn't go out to look,
but I know there was something out.
There Could have been the neighbor
fox, the one that comes through the
neighborhood could have been a weasel.
Mm-hmm.
Could have been a hawk.
But you, you can't not then give
the possibility into this space that
there's more to it than you realize.
So you bring something pretty
interesting up and you talk about.
The picture that is painted
when you get 70 people together
with their observations.
We live in the modern day with artificial
intelligence, just making leaps and
strides where we've now got the ability to
correlate massive amounts of information
and start making sense out of it.
Mm-hmm.
What role is AI playing into
deciphering what the animals are saying?
I think it's huge.
I think it's, it's gonna be really helpful
if like any tool, it's used, right?
It's just a tool.
It is a tool to extend our senses,
if we wanna put it that way.
But it still requires this actual
intelligence and the background with
the environment to ask the right
questions, help with the interpretations,
guide the AI into the spaces that
we need more information like, so
for instance, we in our yard have a.
I guess we're going on three years of
continuous, 24 by seven day and night.
Every year.
Every day, every year.
Recordings for our place.
Okay.
And that is also correlated with
at around two dozen recorders that
are also in Yellowstone, which are
initially, um, set up to do the
world's first really intensive look
at wolf language on scale in the wild.
Hmm.
But it's recording everything.
Everything.
Mm-hmm.
So what's really neat is, you
know, someone will say, George,
like, I, I kind of hear what
you're saying about the Eagle.
You know, the Ravens telling
you there's an eagle coming.
Like, I can kind of hear that,
that sounds a little different,
but I think you're full of crap.
Like, oh, and you've
heard this like, you know.
X number of times over the last decade.
Like, uh, show me the data.
Mm-hmm.
And this is actually
allowing us to have the data.
Mm-hmm.
So I have a spreadsheet on my phone.
So every time an eagle gets chased by
ravens over our house in the recorder,
I can just make a short entry, like the
behavior, the distance, the raven was from
the eagle, the be, you know, the behavior
of the eagle, the behavior of the raven.
There is a difference I've found when
a raven is below a golden eagle, um,
in what it says versus when it's on its
tail, chasing it outta the territory.
There's a difference when the
eagle has eaten and it's full, you
can tell by the full crop, huh?
It says something different.
So there's nuances within this that
we start, will start to be able
to tease apart, because I don't
have to mess with a stupid device.
Like classic, right?
Something's happening.
You can try to get your camera up and
it's over, and A, you didn't capture it
and b, you didn't really watch it either.
Mm-hmm.
Totally.
And it's gone now.
Yeah.
You're screwed.
Yeah.
But in this case, because it's recording
all the time, unless it's really
windy, I have now the ability to start
putting some of these pieces together.
And, uh, a friend of mine's kind of at
the center of this Bioacoustics project
and he has the tech smarts to be able
to, um, train these models to go into
a year's worth of recordings from
multiple devices, which normally would
require years to listen to each one.
Yeah.
Right.
He can, we developed a, a data set of
known wolf hows and garbage trucks and
airplanes and coyotes and other things
that could be confused with wolves.
Train the model, then go through
the entire year's recordings
and pull out all the wolf Hals.
Wow.
You could go in and do the same
thing for magpie calls, bison,
vocalizations, elk, bugles, you name it.
And so those are all great data.
Mining is really helpful, but
you have to still have the man on
the or, the woman on the ground.
Sure.
Who's paying attention to this stuff
to know the contextual basis for
which you're asking the questions.
Yeah, it'll only be as good as
the data that you provide it.
You know, we've got this massive
industry in game calls, animal calls.
Everyone says that theirs is the
best and it's gonna produce the
best results and calls in animals.
And, uh, they've got, I don't know what
metrics are really basing this all off
of, but it reminds me of a story that, uh,
um, friend past podcast guest Hank Shaw
told, and he's in the California area.
He is written a few books
on, on, uh, recipe books.
And anyways, uh, he, he was really into
duck hunting and he's in this one blind
in an area and he is talking about how.
Uh, it was kind of restricted access
because there are so many people who
want to come in and duck hunt, and
so everyone's got their own little
areas and he hears this guy and he's
just letting the worst duck call
over and over, and he is like, oh
my God, he's getting so frustrated.
He's sitting in his blind, and
finally he stands up and he is
like, will you quit it already?
You're scaring 'em all away and
what flies away, but the duck
that was making the calls and
the classic
Totally right.
Yeah.
I've had that with turkeys.
Like, that was gonna be my life.
There's a period where I thought I
was gonna spend my career making,
building, selling Turkey calls.
Mm-hmm.
Competing.
I I actually only competed in
one contest because I realized
thereafter it was like, this is nuts.
Really, this is, you know, it's kind
of
nuts.
Anybody that does these contests,
because it, they're highly trained,
they're highly practiced, they're
amazing and incredibly proficient.
Artists of animal sounds.
Yes.
Like that was, I was gonna do
that, but I came away from that
first contest and I, I got second
in the state, in the amateur open.
I got like fourth in the natural
voice only because I, if you do
additional se, uh, species sounds
Mm.
It only counts against your score.
So like,
oh, come on.
Before doing the gobble.
Yeah.
I did the entire dawn sequence with
everything from owls to geese and robins.
And I did, you know, the whole sequence
penalized for being an overachiever.
Totally.
And I got the only applause.
You weren't supposed to
applaud the audience, so,
excellent.
But the bottom line was like, I
realized there's not a Turkey behind
the curtain with the scorecard.
There is not a Turkey in front
of the, the curtain performing.
Yeah.
And if there was, they
probably wouldn't win.
Yep.
For the same exact reasons.
Right.
And, you know, I'd always been so
fascinated, and that was really the, the
entry point for a lot of this for me was
I, I was drawn to animals I could have
a conversation with, even on that very
basic level, whether it was learning
to call ducks, geese, turkeys, deer,
I've figured out how to call beavers.
Um, all kinds of stuff.
How do you call a beaver?
You
sound like another beaver.
What does that sound like?
Actually, the, the, um, like turkeys and
moose, you know, you will rake the trees
mm-hmm.
You know, if you're calling moose
to help add to the sound appeal.
Mm-hmm.
Um, with turkeys you can scratch
in the duff, you know, they mm-hmm.
That helps settle their nerves and
they realize it's another Turkey.
Um, with beavers, just even like going
to the water's edge and kind of lifting
water out and dropping it back down.
Slapping your hand kind
of in the mud gently.
Mm.
But sounding like, uh, one that's
chewing is actually a you, I've pulled
'em all the way across a whole marsh
before, and if you sound like one
chewing, which they'll, if you've ever
seen 'em, they'll kind of hold a stick,
kinda almost like a corn on the cob.
And they'll go
and they roll it.
Yeah.
I was teaching somebody to do this once
and they're going, I'm like, stop, stop.
They're not eating a bologna sandwich.
They are chewing on a wooden stick.
That is what they sound like too.
That's a good
It is.
Yep.
So even at like, we were out with friends
one time we were watching, it was crazy.
We were watching the Northern
Lights in Virginia and we're
down near this marsh and I could
hear one in the distance chewing.
I was like, you guys
wanna see that beaver?
They're like, yeah.
They're like, whatever.
Like, no, seriously,
you, you wanna see it?
Hmm.
So I got down by the water and
was calling and moving the,
moving the mud and things and.
That thing when it finally realized
we were not, what it thought it was
was probably like eight feet away.
You know, that tail sprays
water all over everybody
and there it is.
You know?
What a cool experience.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the more you sort of give into
these things and follow your own
childlike curiosity, you know, you,
you, you discover a lot more than,
than what's in the books that other
professionals or even, you know, you
don't have to have a biology degree.
I think that's one thing too, is
like, you don't need a degree.
In some cases that
actually is an inhibitor.
You just need to exercise your
curiosity muscles and just go with it.
You know, what if I try this and
I, I'll be honest though, today,
I don't call when I'm outdoors.
Um, and I do this because
for me to really learn what.
Makes these other more than humans
tick, is to see what they naturally
do on a, you know, unmolested.
Mm-hmm.
So the second you how like the wolf
or coyote, the entire situation
changes and becomes partly, if
not entirely focused on you.
Mm-hmm.
So you see what a coyote does in
the presence of a howling human.
I wanna know what the coyotes
doing so I can interpret future
behaviors more accurately.
Mm.
You know, so if I do imitate, and
I think imitation is really key.
You know, obviously hunters are not,
uh, ashamed to, to pick up a call
and try calling and things like that.
I think that's important for a lot of
people to do, and then for hunters to do
of other species that aren't game animals.
Um, because going back to our
discussion about conscious versus
subconscious sensory abilities mm-hmm.
We all learn differently.
Mm-hmm.
Some of us have to hear it
and some of us need to see it.
Some of us need to do it.
You know, that lesson of teaching someone
and then saying, okay, you're gonna
have to teach this next guy to do this.
That changes the way you
engage with the information.
Mm-hmm.
And same when I'm hearing a Robin Sing,
does it always end on that little,
you know, or how long does it go?
Um, like there's, and in this
way it's like, I use my artwork
for sculpting and, and sketching.
When you have to reproduce
it in whatever way, if you're
mathematically inclined, use numbers.
If you're a musician,
write it on tablature.
Mm-hmm.
Whatever is your thing.
Use that superpower to just engage
with it at the next level because
it buries it deeper in you.
And it becomes that tool in the
toolbox you can pull out later
to then solve the next mystery.
And, um, it's so helpful.
Like as a result, I've learned that
Ravens have dialects, they have
regional things, accents, if you will.
I, you know, I don't know if they would
fit directly into these human constructs
in that way, but man, we were just
up, we were up on Vancouver Island
for spring break last year and they're
saying stuff I've never freaking heard
a raven around Montana, Wyoming say,
really?
They sound different in California.
They sound different in Alaska.
They sound different in Maine.
They sound different in Virginia.
Mm.
Um, and I know darn well
from others who know better.
They're saying many of the same thing,
or small cluster of the same things, but
the way they say those, but especially
other stuff sounds different in Austria.
Hmm.
It's different in Scandinavia.
It's different in Russia.
And I think one of the beau most
beautiful things, any one of you who's
listening here, can give the world is
to be that expert in your own backyard.
Like, there's nobody that knows
that place as good as you.
And the reason why it's like,
well, I, I'm actually really
gearing up for that elk hunt.
But no, actually your best homework
is done not just in the maps and
picking your route and who you're
gonna hunt with and what district
you're gonna get the permits for.
It's spending that time eating lunch,
drinking your coffee, doing whatever
it is outside of work on the picnic
table, studying that one specific spot.
Mm-hmm.
So that you start to become part of that
greater community of conversation in
a way that wires into you much deeper.
Because everywhere you go after that.
You're gonna see and hear different
species and, and you know, certainly
you go to Antarctica or something,
or Australia, it's like, I don't
know any of these creatures.
But what you do know, because of
putting that timing is the patterns,
right?
The patterns and the roles that the
Cardinal fulfills in the eastern United
States is the same role that the Paraia,
you know, is, is filling in Arizona.
Mm.
The same role that, that, you know, I
had a gal in a class once, she had always
wanted to go to Africa, wanted to see wild
dogs so bad, and she just, she finally got
the, the, the funds together, got the time
off went and they looked for days and days
and days and didn't see the wild dogs.
Like, she's like, oh gosh,
you know, I really, I really
wanna see these wild dogs.
And at one point they're
riding along and she.
Says to the guide who's in that seat
on the bumper, you know, looking
at tracks, the front bumper, and
she's kind of up in the Land Rover
in one of those elevated backseats.
She says, could they, is it possible
the dogs are, are over there?
Mm-hmm.
And the guy, he like whips
around and he is like, what?
What do you mean?
Like, and he looks and listens
and yeah, they are, they are.
Let's go.
You over there.
Like, he's like, how did you know that?
She says, I don't know, but like couple
of those birds over there were acting
the way the birds in my yard behave
when the neighbor's dog gets loose.
Ah.
And I'm like, exactly.
Uhhuh,
if you're in Africa, the behaviors
the birds do in response to a
mongoose is so similar to that of
a weasel or a mink or a martin.
Mm.
The behaviors that the, you know,
the leopard you doing and how things
are responding to it is so much like.
What they would be for a mountain
lion in North America, or the same
species called a puma in South America.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the way the monkeys
react down there is very similar
to the way the squirrels behave.
And you know, it's like they're all
looking down and like some, it's
that simple in some cases, like
they're, they're elevated to the
height where they're safe, but they're
chewing out something right there.
And like we had a lion
come through this spring.
This last spring?
No, it was summer.
She came through in the middle
of the afternoon and the mag pies
told us with enough time for my
wife to run inside, get her camera,
come out and shoot some footage of
that cat going through our yard.
Otherwise, probably we never
would've even seen it despite it
walking within 20 yards of us.
Hmm.
Yeah.
And that evening, I could tell the cat
was still in the neighborhood because the
mag pies were going nuts, but then they
were going nuts a little more to the left.
Mm.
And to the left a little more
so I could infer, oh, then I
heard, Ooh, ooh, the elk bark.
Mm,
elk only bark for a couple things, right?
People?
Mm-hmm.
Us grizzly bears, wolves,
and that's almost it.
And lions, no wolves nearby
generally don't have many
grizzly bears around the house.
There's no people up there.
And literally like two minutes later,
a friend I hadn't talked to in a
while is like texting me actually.
Then he calls, he's like, Hey, um, I'm
sitting in my truck like right next to
your mailbox, and a mountain lion just
walked out in the road in front of me.
Cool.
Like that.
That was the trajectory, right?
Like the mags were going nuts.
I'm like, whatever that is, is leaving.
This Aspen patch and it's
going toward the road.
Mm-hmm.
And he calls, he is like, it just walked
right out the road in front of me.
That's the first one I've seen in forever.
And then it's just, it's sitting on
the hill between your house and the
mailbox and all the signs were there.
Mm-hmm.
I knew it was there.
It was fun to have that reinforcement.
Um,
yeah.
But nature will tell you.
Yeah.
I mean, okay.
There's, there's, there are a lot of
things to unpack, but, uh, like you
talk about the, the honeycomb nature of,
uh, of the sounds and how that works.
Yeah.
And, uh, zones of silence and
how so much can be transmitted
through the lack of, of noise.
Yeah.
I, I look at, um, so if I walk
through the woods and I step on a
stick and it alerts everything around
me, um, well, I mean, bears do the
same thing and a bear is a predator.
They'll step on something.
How, how come they're not
getting alarmed in this same way?
I mean, there's, there's a
bunch of different, um, yeah.
Uh, points in there that, that I
personally find very interesting.
And then, um, well, I don't know if,
if you have thoughts on that, otherwise
I'll just jump into my next thing here.
Do you have thoughts?
Anything I said there?
Yeah.
Okay.
Don't walk like a human.
Mm.
So elk are famous for crashing
through big stuff, right?
Mm-hmm.
Just like you said, bears will do it.
Uh, hawk taking off through
the woods will crash branches.
Sometimes an owl, uh, pick your animal.
They're making quote, unquote
noise that you're not supposed
to make when you're hunting.
Mm-hmm.
But when we do it, it's associated
with Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
Mm-hmm.
Of the sound and the cadence of a human
footstep moving through the woods.
Mm-hmm.
And most of us in this modern world
have a certain cadence and speed and
gate and, and things that we use.
Going back to my early
lessons, you know, listen.
Truly listen to the sound of
the footsteps of the deer.
Get that in your head.
Step.
Step.
Just that speed.
Mm-hmm.
Say nothing of the amount of noise,
but that speed in the cadence.
It has a different signature altogether
for any number of different species.
So play with this.
This is a great one to experiment with.
Go in and walk through the woods
the best you can, like a squirrel.
Okay.
To, to, to, to break up your
steps into those short squirrel
like hops, ch, ch, ch, ch.
Or Turkey.
Crunch.
Crunch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
After you break the stick.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Hmm.
Chunk, chunk.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I called in, like, one of the last
Turkey I ever harvested in Virginia
was on a public wildlife management
area, and I think I made three calls
over the span of three hours and the
rest was just playing with the leaves.
Mm.
And that bird, when I, when I skinned him
and, and, uh, plucked him, had, I think it
was three number four shot and like two or
three number six shot in his right wing.
It could have been a mixed load.
Right.
But
sure.
He was shot at least once
mm,
if not twice in the right wing, and he
roosted right next to the main road on
this public wildlife management area.
Probably knew every
single call on the market.
Mm-hmm.
Every manufacturer.
Mm-hmm.
But it was stepping back from our
all-knowing human technology and, and
leaning into what it meant to be Turkey.
What did tur really listen to?
How that deer vocalizes at, if at
all, what is the cadence like in the
leaves when they do rack up a tree?
Move your hand.
Imitate that sound to
help sift that in deeper.
You know, can I identify the
racking of a tree to a specific
species of bison versus elk versus
moose versus a big old white tail?
I think you can, I don't know those
answers, but you can teach me.
Right.
That's, that's the benefit of this
stuff is we're all in different
places finding different things.
It's, we get a tip of the iceberg
because we all have these recording
devices in our pockets now.
Mm-hmm.
Where people are posting stuff
that they don't even realize how
important to someone like me.
That one recording is, that's
exactly the sound the coyote
makes when there's a lion around.
And it sounds so similar to that
recording somebody got from California
and that one in Jasper Park.
It sounds so similar to what
they recorded in Idaho, you know,
and that's, that's really cool.
So, and the use of technology is great to
both extend our, extend our senses, but
also to share what we're we're learning.
You know, I've got, uh, there's
the Silvercore Club and we've
got members all across the world
and there's a weekly podcast.
There's a private members
podcast that comes out and.
I'll share thoughts on things, answer club
member questions, and um, after reading
your book, I shared with the club members
your book and, um, my thoughts on it.
One of the prevailing
thoughts that I had was that.
What you were talking about earlier
about how you don't tend to call anymore.
And I'd see, it strikes me that that same
sort of attitude can really do somebody
well in the bush as well as in the city.
We are so stuck on transmit,
it seems everyone's who's
louder, who's doing the thing?
Look at me, look at me.
Did you hear me?
Do you understand what I'm saying?
As opposed to being on receive and
trying really hard to understand
what the other person is saying
or what the animal is saying.
And I thought that was, it seemed
to me anyways, to be an underlying
thread throughout your entire book
was the, uh, the concept of, uh, being
present, um, listening, being open to
receive even if you don't understand.
And it, it seems to have a
bit of a duality between both
the animal and the human.
And that, of course, is an arrogant
thing to say, to say that we're
any different from the animals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What we hold is actually, that's unique,
I should say is, is pretty minimal.
We're, we're, we're not that special.
Hmm.
But at the same time, we're incredible.
Just like everything else is incredible.
And I think we've long overdone our
efforts to establish ourselves as superior
in so many ways that we've actually
really ignored a lot of important things.
It certainly has taken us outta context.
Like we talk about going to nature.
No, you are nature.
Mm-hmm.
I'm sorry.
Like, let's go for a hike.
No, I don't even like the
word going for a hike.
Let's just go for a walk.
Right.
We're just going for a walk.
You know?
Yeah.
It's in rougher ground or you know,
it's like making it something special.
Like we're going out to nature.
When it's right at our fingertips,
it's there teaching us all the time.
Our best teachers are not you.
It's not me.
It's not a scientist.
It's the sparrow, it's the
cardinal, it's the jaguarundi.
It's like, it's whatever
is in your neighborhood.
The most common ones like,
oh, it's damn starlings.
Like, no, no, no, no.
You need to stop right there,
Uhhuh.
You need to stop right there.
Because in nature, they don't
care if you're native or
non-native to the continent.
Mm-hmm.
All they care about is what news
are you spreading and in what way?
So starlings.
Mag pies, magpie, black build
mag pies and birder friend
refers to 'em as trash in a tux.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
They have shown us so many things.
They have taught us so many things.
I've had a chance to watch magpie
funerals like that flips your lid.
Like what is their
inner world really like?
There's so much that we stand to
gain by listening more than we speak.
And this, you know, you hear
this a ton, but we truly don't as
individuals have that much to, to give.
Sure.
But we have by contrast that completely
eclipsed by what we stand to learn.
By just being quiet and receptive.
It makes us better.
I would argue better parents, better
spouses, better school board members,
better neighbors to our people.
Mm-hmm.
By practicing listening.
Not just, you know, and, and you
become sensitized to things that sort
of surprise you at times, but you
discover are, are often right on.
They, they help you navigate
in ways that the human mind and
the human body was intended for.
That's really only been a few centuries
that we've been this out of touch.
I had a question from a member.
This is from, uh, Marcus.
You know, you've, I, I think anyone
listening to this and up to this
point will be able to deduce, but,
uh, I'm gonna ask a question anyways.
What is the single most important
thing I can start doing right
now to begin understanding the
language of the animals around me?
The most important thing you can
do to understand the languages of
animals around you is being quiet,
sitting still, and listening.
That's it.
It's pretty simple.
I love it.
Yep.
And what you get in return for that
investment, like truly, like our most
important investments are not money.
Money is a silly currency.
Mm-hmm.
It's so fleeting, it's so flighty.
It's so persnickety.
But what we really invest in the
things that matter most is our time.
Yes.
Whether that's with our kids, whether
that's with our aging parents or
grandparents or community member.
Like we invest in them
because they're important.
We invest that time.
And as you invest that time and, um,
exemplify that, that value on Yes.
The starlings, yes.
Those urban gray squirrels.
Yes.
Those pesky whitetails that
are eating your petunias.
You start to see how much they're showing
you of a place you thought you knew.
Mm-hmm.
But in reality, you realize how
you barely scratch the surface.
Now, when you were talking earlier,
uh, you brought up a reference of being
like St. Francis, and in your book you
used a measurement of approximately
the size of a sacrament wafer.
If I take these couple little
things, I may be able to deduce that
faith plays a role in your life.
I think anybody living, honestly, it does.
How it manifests is, is uh, as
diverse as the people who, who do it.
Um,
as a kid, I saw how church
and faith was used to
steer people into doing
things for other people.
Mm-hmm.
And not finding the higher order.
Um,
goals that we all pursue spirituality for.
Mm-hmm.
So my mom, despite my, her parents being
well placed in the church and so on,
said, we're going canoeing on Sundays now.
Good mom.
And I think a lot of, I like that
US will say with great conviction
that our church is, is out there.
Hmm.
Jesus himself didn't have a church, he
didn't go to a place he was in the world.
And I think you cannot come away with
without, of course, reverence and
appreciation for what the creator
has made, what God has laid before
us, but, um, feels some kinship
and, and desire to steward that.
Yeah.
And, um, for me personally, I know paying
attention to these animal conversations
with that literally just being kind of
the tip of the iceberg makes me a better
neighbor to my more than human neighbors.
You know, it's the simple thing
as, don't cut that dead tree down.
Don't cut it down that, oh gosh,
I just realized now because I've
been sitting here on the porch
drinking my coffee each morning
that, that's a Woodpecker nest site.
Mm.
That particular tree might be as the dead
seed in our yard is, it's a focal point.
It's a key security system feature.
All the birds who are worried about
trouble go to the top of that one
because their view is unobstructed.
And just think of how many things
we just mow down because we,
the humans don't value them.
They're not important.
They're in the way, they're ugly.
Um, mow the lawn regardless of
whether the cottontail young
have come out of their nest.
Mm,
you just ex granted if you didn't mow
one over and, and chop it to smithereens,
you completely laid that nest, exposed
to Ravens, foxes and everything else.
Mm.
So for me, I know a lot of my
connections with the here and
now and, and those things beyond
come down to taking better care.
And if and when I do go back to hunt,
I'm gonna do it a little different.
Is there anything that we haven't talked
about that we should be talking about?
How much time do we have?
I don't know.
You know, I think we hit the high points.
It's, it's, it's way more than figuring
out what an animal's telling you.
Mm.
It's way more than, um, knowing
that the, the fox is coming hundreds
of yards before it, it's visible.
It's way more than those things.
It's about belonging again.
Mm.
So many people feel alienated and on
the outside and depressed and angry.
And I fall into it.
My God.
Look at the politics these days
like that, that, that burns me.
Yeah.
And, and I'm thankful for my wife.
She like, you need to go for a walk.
Mm-hmm.
I'm like, yes, I do.
Right.
Especially we have similar wives
and yeah.
It we're grateful and, uh, lucky that way.
'cause um,
in nature, even when you're by
yourself, you're never alone.
Hmm.
And I think that's one of the most
beautiful things about this whole
dynamic of sifting back into the natural
world is you are seen, you are seen for
exactly who you are and nothing more.
Hmm.
And for a lot of people, that's
in incredibly liberating.
There's no judgment.
There's no assumptions
comes from that family.
You know how they are.
Oh, he does that for work.
You know what that means?
Animals don't do that.
They don't care if you're from here.
They don't care how long you've been here.
All they care about is what's happening
right now and where do you fit?
And that's, that's really special.
That's something we miss.
You know, just look at how much
money and energy and time is
spent on therapy and, you know,
sessions with, you know.
Psychoanalytic
Right.
You know, processes.
It's just like we are in an epidemic
of loneliness and, and depression.
The pharmaceutical industry
is taking advantage of it.
And a good friend of mine, uh,
author, you know, he moved here and
the doctor in Mammoth Hot Springs
here in Yellowstone said, no, all
those antidepressants out the window.
You're not taking that shit anymore.
Go out and sit on a hill.
And for him it was a close
encounter with a grizzly bear,
maybe not quite unlike yours.
That was like, pay the hell attention.
You're missing stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And what you're missing is
gonna make you a better person.
It's gonna bring you those qualities
that you think of and maybe don't
even realize will make you the
best human being that you can be.
So
I like that.
Well, George, I really enjoyed
getting to know you on this podcast.
I enjoy your perspective.
I'm sure I'm gonna be hitting you up for
a part two because, uh, as I mentioned
earlier, I've never had so many stars
beside all the different questions
of things I wanted to go through.
But, um, thank you, thank you so much
for being on the Silvercore Podcast.
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.