Catherine Shaw

And so the glossy blacks in our area, that's a really good example of one that I'm teaching our students for the benefit of the birds, not just for the benefit of the students.

There was a day when I was sitting here in the office and I could hear the alarm call of noisy miners and butcher birds and rainbow lorikeets all at the same time.

Now, anyone who's an experienced birder knows that when an alarm call of multiple species goes up, there's a problem.

It's most likely a predator.

And so I go running out of my office and the kids say, what's wrong?

What's wrong?

And I said, I heard the alarm call of three different birds and everyone stopped and a goanna came slowly crawling through the garden.

And I went, that's what they were telling us.

Did anyone listen?

Did you notice?

And now I often hear other kids go, oh, that was an alarm call.

And so their eyes are up.

They're looking, is there a bird of prey or is there a goanna around?

They are actually learning to listen to what birds are saying to us.

It's really lovely taking children into the bush and seeing how they experience birds and other animals and what they notice, especially the way they describe birds.

I love that I can tell you that's a Lewin's honey eater, but it's more meaningful that a child says to me, that's the pew, pew, pew bird.

Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.

It's like a Star Wars bird.

And so now we call it the pew, pew bird.

Even in my bird's head, instead of ripping out the scientific species name for that bird, I go, that's the Lewin's honey eater, otherwise known as the pew-pew bird.