# “Listen Carefully to the Voices of the Birds”: A Comparative Review of Birds as Signs

> Why do owls, crows and cuckoos tell people things all over the world? Reviewing nearly 600 bird signs from 123 cultures, the authors found that half are carried by bird calls and a quarter by behaviour, and that the most “talkative” birds are common-enough but not too common. They argue that careful listening to birds extends our awareness far beyond what we can see.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2018-wyndham-park-listen-carefully-voices-birds/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Felice S. Wyndham and Karen E. Park
- **Year published:** 2018
- **Journal or source:** Journal of Ethnobiology
- **Full citation:** Wyndham, F. S. and Park, K. E. 2018. “Listen carefully to the voices of the birds”: a comparative review of birds as signs. Journal of Ethnobiology 38(4): 533–549.
- **DOI:** 10.2993/0278-0771-38.4.533
- **Access status:** Open access (CC BY-NC 4.0)
- **PDF:** https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/2018_Wyndham_and_Park_listen-carefully-to-the-voices-of-the-birds-a-comparative-review-of-birds-as-signs.pdf

## Tags

- **Species:** Birds
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Communication
- **Methods and technology:** Descriptive statistics; Indigenous knowledge; Literature review
- **Data type:** Existing data; Review
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Anthropology; Awareness; Human dimensions; Indigenous knowledge
- **Year published:** 2018

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: birds that people read as signs, 498 kinds in total. 398 could be placed in Linnaean groups (23 orders, 77 families, 98 subfamilies and 247 species); 100 could not be identified below “bird”. Most reported groups: owls (57 reports), crows (23), cuckoos (19), woodpeckers (17), herons (15), and chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), eagles and nightjars (13 each). Examples named in the text: House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), hummingbirds (Trochilidae), Western Bowerbird (Chlamydera guttata), magpie (Pica pica), toucans (Ramphastos spp.), Caracara plancus, the tanú (Cyanocorax cyanomelas, whose warning call tells the Ayoreo a jaguar is near), Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera), Masked Tityra (Tityra semifasciata), Plumbeous Ibis (Theristicus caerulescens). Threatened sign-bearing birds named: eagles (Terathopius ecaudatus; Harpia spp.), trogons (Harpactes duvauceli; H. diardi), Crested Jay (Platylophus galericulatus), Greater Scythebill (written Drymotoxeres pusherani in the paper), Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), hornbills (Bucorvus leadbeateri, Buceros sp., Anthracoceros marchei), Hawai’i Elepaio (written Chasiempis sandwichsis in the paper), Flores Crow (Corvus florensis), Yellow-shouldered Blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus), Crowned Crane (Balearica regulorum) and Hooded Vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus). Bats appear once in Table 2, in brackets. Also mentioned: jaguar (as the danger the tanú’s call warns of).
- **Location and habitat:** Worldwide, from published ethnographies. 123 ethnolinguistic groups: North and Meso-America (37 groups; Belize, Guatemala, Canada, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Panama, United States), Africa (23; Angola, Botswana, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe), Asia (19; China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam), South America (18; Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela), Europe and Middle East (15; Finland, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Iran, Italy, Russia, Spain, Syria, Saudi Arabia) and Oceania (11; Australia, Hawai’i, Marshall Islands, Melanesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Vanuatu). African groups include the !X~o (as printed), /Gwi and San (Botswana) and the Khoi, Tsonga and Zulu (South Africa). The sample has more groups from the Americas than elsewhere.
- **Topics:** ethno-ornithology; birds as signs, omens, messengers and teachers; ecological indicators; bird vocalizations (calls rather than songs); bird behaviour as a sign; unusual or “queer” behaviour as a sign; biocultural salience; “phylogenetic loneliness” (why owls stand out); passerines, near-passerines and non-passerines; folk taxonomy at subfamily level; prospection (thinking about the future); conservation status of sign-bearing birds; “Keeping Common Birds Common”; Indigenous knowledge; ethics of reusing published ethnographies; bird language and tracking ecological bird sign (mentioned in the introduction).
- **Statistics or models:** Descriptive statistics only: counts and percentages, compared with world bird species totals and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List categories from BirdLife International (2015). No statistical tests. Inconsistencies: the text says “Out of 498 birds that were taxonomically identifiable to order”, but only 398 of the 498 could be identified; the passerine share is given as 23% (of all 498 birds, also in the Discussion as “Passeriformes was the most represented (23%)”) and as 29% (Passeriformes among identified orders), on different bases without saying so. Abstract says 498 “kinds of birds”; the introduction says 598 signs; the Methods say 598 signs about 498 birds from 169 publications. 113 of 307 eHRAF groups mentioned bird signs, while the total sample is 123 groups (the rest presumably from the other literature; not stated).
- **Data type:** Review and existing data: a Web of Science search for “ethno-ornithology” (166 books and articles, 20 selected) plus the electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF) World Cultures database (searched with “all cultures”, “ethnozoology” and “bird”; accessed 2016). Sources were published from 1864 to 2015. Pilot study of 153 instances presented in 2015. Full data set shared through the Ethno-ornithology World Atlas.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

People all over the world notice birds and read them as signs: of weather, food, danger, visitors, luck or death. The authors set out to find which birds most often “tell people things”, how those signs reach people, and why some birds matter more than others.

They searched the published literature in English and Spanish. A Web of Science search for “ethno-ornithology” gave 166 books and articles, of which 20 focused on birds as signs. They then searched the electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF) World Cultures database, a large indexed collection of ethnographies, for passages on birds. In total they analysed 598 culturally defined bird signs, involving 498 kinds of birds, from 169 publications and 123 ethnolinguistic groups on every inhabited continent.

They counted only signs that were conventional and ongoing, not one-off stories, and left out bird symbolism, totems and bird calls people use to signal each other. They identified each bird as far as the source allowed (often only to subfamily, such as “crows” or “jays”), recorded how the sign was delivered (voice, behaviour, physical presence, or reading the bird’s innards), and compared the birds with world bird species totals and conservation status.

### 2. What they found

How common bird signs are

- 113 of the 307 groups searched in eHRAF (37%) mentioned birds as signs at least once.

- Local explanations often pointed to birds’ vision: they see far across the land, rise high for a “bird’s-eye view”, and, for night birds, see in the dark. Crow consultants in the early 1900s said owls signify because they “can see in the dark and into the future”.

- Birds that looked or behaved strangely were often read as signs, even common birds. An Ojibwe woman took a hawk caught in a rabbit snare as a sign, because such birds are almost never snared.

Which birds

- Of the 498 birds, 100 could not be identified below “bird”. The rest fell into 23 orders, 77 families, 98 subfamilies and 247 species.

- The most reported were owls (57 reports), crows (23), cuckoos (19), woodpeckers (17), herons (15), and chickens, eagles and nightjars (13 each).

- Passerines (songbirds and perching birds) made up 23% of all the birds in the sample, although they are 58% of the world’s bird species. Near-passerines (34% versus 25% worldwide) and non-passerines (23% versus 18%) were over-represented.

- Most reports named birds at the subfamily level, which the authors see as a common worldwide way of grouping birds.

How the signs reach people

- Voice 50%, behaviour 24%, physical presence 10%, finding a nest 1%, and reading innards or eggs 2%. 13% did not say.

- Most voice signs were calls, not songs: the top birds (owls, crows, cuckoos, woodpeckers, herons, eagles) are “callers” rather than “singers”.

Conservation status

- Of the 247 identified species, 92% were of Least Concern, compared with 77% of birds worldwide. Near Threatened (4% versus 10%), Vulnerable (2% versus 7%) and Endangered or Critically Endangered (2% versus 6%) birds were under-represented.

### 3. What they concluded

- In any part of the world, certain birds, if present, are more likely to be read as signs than others.

- Owls are perhaps the prototypical sign bird: a striking voice, a human-like face, a swivelling neck, night habits and senses beyond ours. The authors suggest that breaking categories helps make a bird an effective sign. Many top sign birds (owls, crows, raptors) are also linked with death as meat or carrion eaters, and night birds with danger.

- Signs come most from common-enough, but not too common, birds with distinctive life histories and seasonal behaviour. Very rare birds, very common birds and birds closely tied to people (such as pets) work poorly as signs.

- Naming birds at subfamily level reflects flexibility, not a failure to tell birds apart: widely shared meanings last better at broader levels (“jay” rather than a particular jay).

- Predictive signs help people remember past experience and anticipate the future. Paying attention to birds builds ecological awareness that reaches beyond what people can see: by listening to birds, people can know what is happening up to a kilometre away, and by watching them, sometimes when a big storm is coming. The authors speculate that people’s habit of looking ahead may have grown from reading their surroundings through careful observation and tracking, then spread to ideas of luck, fate and spirits.

- “Start by keeping the birds happy, and the rest will follow.”

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- The electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF) World Cultures database, with subject-indexed paragraphs for cross-cultural comparison.

- The full data set is public through the Ethno-ornithology World Atlas, with links to the original sources.

- The authors discuss the ethics of reusing older ethnographies, some of which use offensive terms or published knowledge communities considered secret, and the need to return control of such material to the communities it came from.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- Collections like this one also record negative views of birds that are feared, hated and killed, most notably owls, which in many places are linked with sorcery and death despite their role in rodent control.

- Sign birds are mostly common birds that tolerate some human disturbance, so they are less directly relevant to programmes for endangered species. Even so, people’s everyday relationships with common birds shape attitudes to all birds, animals, plants and landscapes, as in BirdLife International’s “Keeping Common Birds Common” initiative.

- Healthy traditional relationships often include killing birds for food or medicine. Western conservation can learn most from the holistic, subtle awareness of how species’ wellbeing is connected; lively, vocal birds suggest that plants, water and other animals are also doing well, and birds can be important indicators of ecosystem health.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Half of all bird signs in the review were calls and a quarter were behaviour. Trackers who read alarm calls and unusual bird behaviour to find animals are using the same channels people have relied on worldwide, as with the Ayoreo saying that the warning call of the tanú (Cyanocorax cyanomelas) means a jaguar is near.

- The finding that unusual behaviour draws attention echoes tracking practice: a bird out of place, or acting out of the ordinary, is often worth following up.

- The authors contrast the skepticism, testing and checking with peers found in natural history prospection, citing Kalahari hunters, with signs about luck and fate. This is a useful reminder to separate what birds tell us about the land from what culture reads into them.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: “Listen Carefully to the Voices of the Birds”: A Comparative Review of Birds as Signs (Wyndham and Park, 2018). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2018-wyndham-park-listen-carefully-voices-birds/