This seminar invites participants to attune their senses to birds—not as objects of study, but as guides in the practice of attention. Through walks, shared listening activities, reading, and writing, we will explore what birds ask of us, and our attention: to slow down, to listen beyond language, to consider flight as metaphor and as a real, embodied gesture. Drawing from ethno-ornithology, poetry, field notes, and soundscape ecology, we’ll reflect on how noticing birds can deepen our sense of place, time, and relation.
Participants will engage in creative exercises (writing, drawing, mapping, recording) to explore how birds shape human imagination and how we, in turn, attend to them — with care, with awe, and sometimes with grief. The seminar will culminate in a small shared offering — a collage of observations, poems, or field texts — composed through the collective practice of attention.
No prior bird knowledge necessary. Curiosity welcome.
Led by writer and science educator Melody Serra.