Before I start talking too much about communication and words and stuff, I want you to look at an image.
Take a look
Communication for Birdies
Some of us are blessed with the power to communicate with nearly anyone with ease – it’s almost effortless. I am not one of those people. In the bird world, I think I’d be a hawk. I stand away from the crowd as most hawks are solitary or spend time in small groups. So you could say…I watch people…like a hawk. When I meet someone new, I pay attention to their words, body language, behaviors, and much more until I have a decent baseline.
Why do I need a baseline? I don’t really know the answer to that – it’s probably one of those deep-seated things from childhood. I assume it’s because I don’t have a natural assumption of trust in other people. I want to see how they behave first.
On the other side of social birdliness are the flock-together types like starlings. They are the type you might see in a murmuration. Here’s a quick video of the mesmerizing effect.
For the sake of this particular comparison, I’m going to say that starlings are like the extroverts who are energized and/or more comfortable in groups. I won’t assume to know anything about how a bird trusts others, but they are adept and at ease performing in groups and clearly there is some communication going on.
Do you find yourself more of a starling, a hawk, or somewhere in between?
Back to the Point
So now I’d like to bring it back to the sign telling us not to feed the birds. This is an example of communication that is very direct and friendly…but only if you are considering the text content. The top of the sign is an image of a pigeon with a Ghostbusters no sign – it’s technically a prohibition sign according to ISO standards, but is just seen as a universal ‘NO’ symbol.
The image and symbol are saying NO PIGEONS. We are to understand that a pigeon is representing all birds here, and we can assume that the reason for this sign existing at all relates to pigeons being the number one food seeker in this location.
The interesting thing here is the disconnect between the message of the sign “Please don’t feed the birds. Thank you!” and what the graphics are showing us. The sign should really have a human hand spilling some seed with the NO symbol through it.