What a wonderful journal of thoughts and observations by Amy Tan, who also is a fabulous illustrator. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is beautifully written and published (thick paper, suitable for color plates) and $35, which is cheap for a book with this kind of art. (I read a library copy.)
Finally I get this birder thing. Amy Tan chronicles not only the "bird community" in her lush backyard, but her own mind chatter—and she is self-revealing in that way that I'm guessing most people will relate to: all of our judgments and worries, etc. The entries range from informative to funny to sad and even heart-breaking (it is a rough world in the wild, even in the well-tended world of backyard birdfeeders) to inventive (a wonderful "live commentary" of "The Windowsill Wars" for bird food). And I so admire her care for all living creatures—from the birds to the live mealworms she feeds them. She roots for life but has the ability or tolerance to watch death.
I live in NYC, right off Central Park, and for most of my decades here I had dogs (my last girl died a couple of years ago), so I was well acquainted with the human "bird community" in Central Park's woodland area, The Ramble. [If this sounds familiar, it is because the well-publicized horrific racist incident with one of the long-time birders, Christian Cooper, was in the north end of the area.] Historically, the birders are not fond of the dog people who chronically break the leash laws in the Ramble. And the dog people, who are there year round no matter the weather, are not that fond of the birders who tend to travel in massive aggressive herds, moving like a seasonal invasive species oblivious to anything or anyone on the ground who is not a bird. There are obnoxious birder guides who show off by blasting their bird calls through the serenity to impress the people who've paid to go on their tours. In short, there is obnoxious behavior on both sides of this birder/dog people history. But after reading Amy Tan's book, I finally get it: the birds are just like us—complicated, scrappy, territorial, with bullies and submissives, predators and prey. Maybe I'll even take my binoculars there myself now that I'm solo. (N.B. The solo birders are no problem—some became my friends over the years. Christian Cooper was not a herd-group birder, and the woman who falsely accused him was a newbie dog person—Ramble etiquette is, when caught off leash, to say "Sorry" and leash up—no big deal.)
At the beginning of the book, Amy Tan writes about how she was taught to "become the bird" by her drawing instructor, and she does—struggling to understand how they recognize individuals and why they do what they do and if they can change their habits . . . which brings me to:
Some thoughts on energetic and telepathic communication that Amy Tan never mentions:
In my years of watching birders in the Ramble so obsessed with peering through binoculars and camera lenses, I often had a fantasy. Or an idea for a cartoon: what if somehow what they saw were birds staring back at them through tiny binoculars?
The thought amused me and still does, and, often while reading this book, I found myself envisioning this.
Amy Tan is mostly focused on common human senses of sight and sound in her musing about why birds react the way they do—even wondering why they are fine when she's looking at them naked-eyed through her glass doors, but the instant she picks up her binoculars, they take off. She posits that it is because she looks scary.
This brings me to a New York City anecdote:
Many decades ago when I was in my early twenties and lived in my same top-floor walkup apartment with found furniture and uncovered windows, I began getting a series of bizarre phone calls. They started with hang-ups and eventually progressed to a creepy woman's voice saying there was a peeping Tom in the neighborhood and I was giving him the wrong idea by . . . and then she described what I'd been wearing the previous night alone on my couch reading.
I was freaked out but also very angry. I did a number of things, including covering my windows at night and getting hanging plants to obscure them during the daytime. But the thing that finally ended this debacle once and for all was when I looked back.
Every morning I sat in what I call my "big chair" in my living room and drank my coffee. It was a ritual I loved, early early, alone, as I stared out the window at the morning light coming in. But this one morning I'd prepared the night before. As I calmly gazed out the window, bare-eyed, enjoying my coffee, I suddenly spotted what I was looking for: a man two blocks north hanging out his high-rise window, brazenly aiming a telescope at me. Without drama, I set down my coffee cup, casually pulled my own pre-set binoculars out from the side table, put them to my eyes and looked back.
The man's telepathic shock ("oh my god!") and horror were audible and palpable—an energetic jolt as strong as lightning, without the sting, traveled from him to me as he pulled back inside his apartment so violently that he hit his head on his own window.
I was never bothered again.
Energy and telepathy are the language I am positive birds (and all animals) use and react to. When somebody is watching you, it can be felt. If it is invasive, it has a definite quality. Why is it so hard for humans to realize that when they peer at another being, they are also being perceived? And why do people miss that animals only resort to pantomiming what they need (Amy Tan describes the repetitive behavior of birds who want her to fill her empty feeders as a possible sign of higher intelligence) after they have sent clear telepathic demands only to realize we are deaf?
How do I know this? I lived with dogs for decades and they taught me: one look and I knew what they wanted: to go out, water, for me to get out of their spot, etc. It was as clear to me as speech, and they had some confusion with other humans who didn't hear them. Since my last dog died, I've babysat for a neighbor's dog, and he does the same thing. One look, and I know what he wants. He has impeccable telepathy and canine manners and seems relieved that I hear him. We all could. We just need to think to wonder and listen a little harder.*
*I "brazenly" took a deep dive into all this in my new novel Cats on a Pole.