Quiet watching
The oldest field skill, and the one the phone is worst at.
Stillness is a method
A heron is the teacher. If you stand as if you have nowhere else to be, the yard resumes. Five minutes will bring a wagtail. Fifteen may bring the thing you came for.
Ears first
Learn three voices by heart — magpie, miner, wren — and the rest of the soundscape starts to have furniture. A new call is then a door, not a noise.
The phone in the pocket
Use it to log, not to hunt. The observation you remember is the one you watched to the end. The photograph can wait until the bird has told you what it is doing.
