In many ways it's better to think of Birds as having more to do with
landscape than birds. This is because the players, once they know which
bird they're dealing with, should be encouraged to think as much about
where the bird is as what it's doing. Poems from the bird's or its prey's
point of view are also possibilities. In all cases care must be taken to
prevent bland stereotypic or encyclopedia writing. Often, as with the World
Game, the player will have a limited knowledge but they have all seen or
heard birds; more, they have seen them somewhere. Again, discussion will
reveal which approach is most suitable and pictures of birds in action or
landscape will help their remembering.
The players were told that there were over 250 different birds common to
Britain and that 110 of them were hidden in numbered envelopes in our `bird
box'. To discover their bird they played for its number.
The first version of the game was played in a wooden box (a baker's tray)
part of which was hollowed to make a nest. The players rolled 32 marbles,
and the number that stayed in the nest was counted. In a simpler version
of the game players draw numbered eggs which relate to envelopes
containing the shape and information card. The original workshop was
dominated by two hinged display boards bearing eagles with eight-foot
wingspans. The feathers of the eagles were a collage of poems and pictures
about birds for the players to look at, read and refer to throughout the
workshop.
The envelopes contained an information card with picture, and details of
habitat, call and diet; and a cardboard template of the bird cut in four -
wings, head, body and tail. Since I had to create the bird jigsaws from
scratch, checking scale and drawing them individually, I would not
recommend it unless very long-term use was anticipated. But because it
does offer each player the opportunity of producing a properly shaped and
proportioned drawing, some, more standardised, templates are provided to
assist empathy and artwork. The information cards are not that necessary
but some background should be available, if only to find out small details
like nest materials which can often help the poem along.
Whatever game is played, it is only a mechanism for selection from a wide
ranging subject, and at its simplest the players could be asked which birds
they've seen recently and where. Then, either by putting the names or
descriptions on slips of paper for random distribution, or by asking players
to choose which of those they've seen they'd like to concentrate on and
write about, they can focus on the subject, making quick notes and then
recalling detail from memory.
After the poem was finished the players usually copied it onto blue card
with the outline of the bird from the template, and coloured in. During the
summer workshops murals were created on large sheets of hardboard, the
first players drawing a picture in chalk, the others over the course of a week
filling it in with small pieces of various paper and fabrics stuck with suitable
glues.
