Standing Still and Shutting Up (Me Included)
Okay, this one's less about identification and more about how to actually be out there.
I've talked a lot in this class about shape and movement and color. All useful. None of it matters if you're the kind of walker who keeps going, keeps talking, keeps moving your feet because standing still in the cold feels wrong. I know because that was me for about a year and a half.
Here's the thing. The birds were there before you showed up. They're not waiting for you to walk toward them. Most of what you'll actually see well happens when you stop moving and stop narrating and just let the scene settle back down around you, because you disturbed it the second you walked up.
Why standing still works
When you walk, you're a moving shape to every bird within a hundred yards, and moving shapes read as threat. Stop walking and stand for two or three minutes and something shifts. Birds that ducked into the reeds come back out. Birds that were holding still waiting you out go back to doing whatever they were doing. You get to see behavior instead of just a shape disappearing.
This is also, honestly, the part of the walk where I have to manage myself. I like to talk. I like to point things out and explain what I'm seeing and tell you why it matters, and every single time I do that I'm making noise a duck can hear from across the water. So part of teaching this class is me practicing shutting up, which does not come naturally to me at all.
A practical way to do it
Pick a spot along the trail, ideally somewhere with a view of open water or a field. Stop. Don't talk for two full minutes. Don't check your phone. Just look, and let your eyes settle instead of scanning fast. Most people scan too fast the first few times, like they're looking for something specific, when really you want to let your eyes go a little soft and let movement catch your attention on its own.
Two minutes feels long the first time. It felt long to me too. Try it for real, with a watch, so you're not guessing.
Dress for it, because standing still is colder than walking
Here's where I have to tell on myself. My first January out there I dressed like I was headed to Costco for a quick run, not like I was going to be standing still by open water for an hour. I got so cold at one point I couldn't work the buttons on my own coat. Had to sit in the car with the heater blasting and just wait it out, embarrassed, while Alan pretended not to notice.
Standing still doesn't generate any body heat the way walking does, and the wind coming off open water has nothing to slow it down out on the flats. So now I dress like I'm headed up the canyon even on a day that looks mild from the car window. Base layer, real coat, good gloves, the kind of socks that cost more than you want to spend on socks. If you get cold enough that your hands stop working, the walk is over for you whether you want it to be or not, and cold hands are the single fastest way to ruin a morning. That's a real caution, not me being dramatic. Frostbite on exposed skin can happen faster than people expect once the wind's involved, so if fingers or toes go numb and stay numb, that's the signal to head back to the car, not push through.
The part I still have to work on
I don't think you have to keep a list to enjoy this, and I've said that before. But I'll add something to it here: you don't have to talk through everything you're seeing either. I catch myself narrating a duck's whole life story while it's sitting there minding its business, and half the time I'd have seen more if I'd just watched instead of explained.
So this week's practice is really about restraint. Yours and mine both.
Before next time
Try the two-minute stand-still somewhere close to home this week, even your own backyard or a spot along a trail you already walk. Notice what shows up once you stop being the moving thing in the landscape.