A Grandchild’s Song for Robins

BirdNote Daily

BirdNote

Bird, Science, Birding, Birdwatching, Wildlife, Bird Song, Birds, Ecology, Nature, Education, Bird Note, Birdnote, Nature Study, Ecosystems, Outdoors, How To, 769080, Sound, Natural Sciences

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Singing about the joy of birds in the Meskwaki language.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Bird Note.
0:06.0	Ray Young Bear is a writer, musician, and a member of Musquaki Nation.
0:10.0	He considers himself a word collector, writing poetry in both English and
0:15.0	Musquake, his first language.
0:18.0	And he enjoys taking photos of the birds around his home in Iowa. In the spring of
0:23.3	2021, he was spending time with his grandson, Ozzy Young Bear. We were watching Robbins around
0:30.2	this time, and I just began composing a song based on us watching the robins
0:38.3	as they hunted for earthworms,
0:41.3	more than anything to entertain my grandson
0:44.3	to try and coincide the hop in movements
0:48.3	of the robin with the song itself.
0:54.4	The English translation is
0:56.4	Robin, Robin.
0:59.2	Our grandson, our grandson
1:01.7	enjoys watching you.
1:04.7	Hunt for earthworms.
1:07.1	Hunt for earthworms.
1:09.1	Music Hunt for earthworms.
1:20.2	Ray Young Bear later recorded the song for a music collection called For the Birds,
1:27.3	the Bird Song Project. Over 200 musicians, artists, and writers contributed, with proceeds going to the National Audubon Society.
1:30.1	Find a link to Ray Young Bear's song
1:32.1	and the complete music collection
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BirdNote, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BirdNote and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.