Kirsty Costa

I wonder if you've ever birdwatched in a woodland.

I mainly hang out in the stringybark forests of southeastern Melbourne, and these woodlands feel like home to me.

When I get time for a long weekend, I head to the box ironbark forests of the greater Bendigo region in central Victoria.

This type of woodland feels different.

Darker, drier, and a lot more honey eaters.

Emmy says that no matter which woodland you're in, the first thing you should do is stop and look around.

That's good advice.

I like to think about woodland layers like nature's apartment building.

Each floor has different tenants living in it.

The basement is below ground.

The ground floor is where the grasses and flowers and small ferns grow, and where you'll find leaf litter and branches and logs.

Next up is the middle floor, which is called the shrub layer.

It's made up of bushy plants and younger trees.

And then there's the top floor, which is called the canopy.

I don't know if that's simplifying science too much, but that's how I remember it.

Basement, ground floor, middle floor, top floor.

Emmy says that when she's surveying and birdwatching, she's looking for different birds living in these different layers of a woodland.

In a woodland, it's impossible to see everything at once.

Most of the time you can't see the horizon.

So Emmy suggests that the best way to start is to notice the first small movement.