Phoebe McIndoe is an artist and host of the podcast, Telling Stories.

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TRANSCRIPT:

PHOEBE: I think the advice that I'm really offering is to identify a few bird calls for yourself, get to know the sound a bit and then you more or less created your own treasure hunt going around your city because you can go out and try to identify the calls and find the birds. So I'll start the call off and a robin will fly down to the branch near me. Especially when it's at eye-level and you're looking in its eye and the robin is looking at you and you feel there is a connection there.

Dear, Zak. This is a poem. It's called Calling for Robins -

When the jobs ran awry - and the real money dried up

I wanted to let their liquid gold, spill through my ears 

When love went awry 

After change and tears 

I went to catch eyes with robins in the park 

To feel the old spark igniting in new ways 

They will just look at me as though I've communicated something in their language and they can't quite understand whether it's real or not. They listen to me and I have no idea what I'm saying to them. So sometimes I try and attach a feeling or an emotion. You are not sure whether it's understood you or not and I think that we always feel that whether it's an animal or a human being. We wonder if the connection is in our heads or whether they felt it too.

When words were too 

Difficult to pronounce the soft whistle still urged itself up

I offer myself to Robins, like the worm with the death-wish

Their call giving a shape and clarity to the day 

And in the pin-point of their eyes

I seem to find some understanding

Rooting me back to the earth. 

So, when everything begins to feel awry

I advise 

Calling for Robins. 

PHOEBE: So, let's carry on.

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