Tracking Connections Podcast
Hosted by Jon Young, Sarah Fontaine, and Aidan Young
Ep 46 ~ Backyard Bird Language & Expanding Awareness with Jon, Sarah, and Aidan
May 28, 2025
Birds talk to each, we can learn to understand it, and it's fun!
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Episode Description
Hosted by Jon Young, Sarah Fontaine, and Aidan Young
What if the birds outside your window were telling a story—and you could understand it?
In this rich and deeply practical episode, we explore the timeless practice of bird language: an ancient skill of awareness, empathy, and interspecies communication. We share stories from sit spots, backyards, and wild landscapes where birds, bobcats, and even our dogs, help shape our understanding of what's happening in the natural world around us.
Jon shares insights from decades of study and teaching, including lessons from his book What the Robin Knows, and describes how tuning in to the “Five Voices” of the birds can open a deeper relationship with the world. Sarah and Aidan add stories of personal encounters—from backyard alarms to bobcat tracking—that show how learning bird language can help us see more of our wild neighbors, enrich daily life, and even change how we move through social spaces.
Whether you’re a seasoned tracker or just stepping outside with a cup of tea, this episode invites you to slow down, listen closely, and find magic in the everyday movement waiting just outside your door.
"Birds talk to each other, we can learn to understand it, and it's fun."
Show Notes
What The Robin Knows by Jon Young
Dan Gardoqui on Tracking Connections Podcast
George Bumann on Tracking Connections Podcast
Eavesdropping on Animals by George Bumann
Study - Animal Language and Prairie Dogs
🪶 Learn about the “Five Voices” and explore learning materials:
https://www.birdlanguage.com
Our next episode will release on June 11, 2025.
The transcript for this episode is available here.
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Sarah Fontaine
Sarah is a Wildlife Tracker, Interspecies Communicator, and Nature Connection Facilitator.
For over 25 years, Sarah has been practicing ways of deepening connection with self and nature through psychoeducation, neuroscience, somatics and energy awareness. Greatly informed by over 20 years as a professional Massage Therapist and Bodyworker, her studies and practice include Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Trauma Integration, Emotional Clearing, Craniosacral Therapy, Chakra-work, Traditional Chinese Medicine Meridians and Five Elements theory.
She has studied wildlife tracking through Shikari Tracker Mentoring with Jon Young and Josh Lane, Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, and Cybertracker Conservation. She is a graduate of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and studied Interspecies Communication with Anna Breytenbach and Wynter Worsthorne.
She currently offers Wildlife Tracking courses, pathways for applying neuroscience and energy awareness to nature connection practices, and co-facilitates online programs for deep nature connection at Living Connection 1st.
About Our Hosts
Jon Young
Jon Young is a deep nature-people-self connection researcher, mentor, naturalist, wildlife tracker, author, workshop leader, consultant and storyteller. Jon has been mentored in deep nature connection by his own grandmothers, Tom Brown, Jr. and a host of elders and experts. As a leader in the field of nature-based community building over 40 years, Jon’s research into the impact and significance of nature on mentoring, human intelligence, spirituality, well-being and development has influenced tens of thousands of people worldwide. Jon has authored and co-authored several seminal works on nature connection and connection mentoring, including What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World (2013), and Coyote's Guide to Connecting to Nature (2007). Jon has appeared in numerous documentaries including The Animal Communicator (2012). In 2016, he received the Champion of Environmental Education Award for his innovative work, which has inspired positive developments in the field, and fostered the growth of the nature connection movement on a global level.
Aidan Young
Aidan is a musician, naturalist, and mentor. Over the past 20+ years, he has mentored hundreds of musicians, including over a dozen that went on to top music schools, performed on stage over a thousand times, mentored youth and adults in nature connection, including Kamana services, and guided people on their creative paths as a personal mentor. He is a graduate of the Kamana Program and experienced in the Shikari Tracker Training Program, has served on several Art of Mentoring acorns, helped produce The 512 Project, plays guitar, bass, piano, and mandolin, sings, and writes songs. He currently offers music lessons and personal mentoring and lives in Los Altos, CA with his wife Mystical and their three children.