This is Bird Note.

Author Ray Youngbear has a special bond with a red-winged blackbird in his backyard on the

Mesquaki Nation's land in Iowa.

The red-wing blackbird is very friendly, and it's the first time that's ever happened in my life.

I've asked it in Musquake, Gawir Shab and Nawat Shabwitsch again.

I've got some food here. Please wait. And the bird will listen, and then, you know, I'll just get the bird feed,

and he takes it and off it goes.

And that's the first time in my life in 71 years that a bird has approached me that close.

But it's not the first time he's had interactions with these birds. Many years ago, when he was training his singing voice, Ray Young Bear took a kind of vocal lesson from the blackbirds. In order to hone my skills with music, I'm a singer, native songs, and I'd go out into the field way out of nowhere and scream my lungs out, my throat

out. And oftentimes the birds that I would hear in the woods were the red wings.

And I would listen to them and try to imitate their singing.

They have the most complicated song in the world,

high pitches and low notes,

and then it smoothes out,

and it kicks up again.

And I used Red Wing Blackbirds

in my self-training of music,

and they were instrumental

in developing my voice to where it is today.

Yeah, check a quo, how way, oh, hey, Kama'a gu'a. And they were instrumental in developing my voice to where it is today.

Learn more about Ray Young Bear's music and writing on our website, birdnote.org.

I'm Ariana Rommel.

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