Listening to Nature: The Bird Calls Phone at The Willows

Tweet! Tweet! Dialing Up!

If you visit our campus, you may see an unusual sight: students and staff using a pay phone. No change is required to use this payphone! It’s a Bird Calls Phone! Installed on the outside of our Willows 3 Building, the phone is used by students throughout the day. Simply pick up the handset and push a dial-pad number and you hear various bird calls. This ornithological landscape also offers brief information about each bird such as habitat and description.

After listening to an NPR’s Weekend Edition article about the Bird Calls Phone, Lisa Rosenstein, Head of School, thought what a wonderful addition this would be on our campus and asked Ann Istrin, Middle School Science teacher to inquire about securing a phone for The Willows.

“The Bird Calls Phone is an interactive, experiential, and inspirational tool for our students,” states Lisa. “It is an extension of our science curriculum but also offers our students a connection to nature to discover more about their surroundings.”

Ann immediately contacted David Schulman, a sound designer, violinist, composer, audio producer, and faculty member of Georgetown University, who created the Bird Calls Phone by hot-wiring an obsolete pay phone as part of a contest to design an interactive public art project.

The bird calls included in the phone are from the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology recordings and all feature birds that are native to Culver City and Los Angeles. Birds represented and the corresponding dial number include:

1 Allen's Hummingbird

2 House Sparrow

3 Red-Tailed Hawk

4 Acorn Woodpecker

5 Northern Shoveler

6 Red-Winged Blackbird

7 Red-Crowned Parrot

8 Night Heron

9 Hooded Oriole

O Great Horned Owl

In addition to offering a science and ornithology lesson, birdsong is shown to reduce stress and anxiety. Birds are a way to connect with nature. In The Washington Post article, Why birds and their songs are good for our mental health, by Richard Sima, it states, “Research has consistently shown that more contact and interaction with nature are associated with better body and brain health.” 

We kicked off the Bird Calls Phone with a Friday all-student assembly featuring the Audubon Society conducting a bird presentation complete with taxidermy birds for students to see.

Now, students, at any time can participate in a mini-ornithology lesson or just hear the peaceful sounds of birds chirping!

More information at:

Bird Calls Phone Article on NPR: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/03/1228839458/how-one-maryland-phone-box-turned-into-a-work-of-art-connecting-people-to-nature

Learn more about David Schulman at: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/0031Q000025pdW4QAI/david-schulman