The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Summary: Four years of journals on the birds visiting Amy Tan’s backyard, with sketches and detailed drawings.

At age 64, Amy Tan took art lessons from Jack Muir Laws, a nature illustrator. This led to walks viewing birds, sketchbook and drawing pencils in hand. She learned to make quick, rough sketches capturing essential features of the birds that she saw. Then she realized that her own backyard was a haven for birds, and her house, with extensive windows looking out on that yard, the ideal ‘blind” {except for the birds trying to fly through the windows, remedied with various decals).

She filled journal after journal with her observations, accompanied by sketches with captions, and sometimes the imagined thoughts or conversations show more of the birds. Her observations range from elation and love when a hummingbird feeds from a feeder in her hand and she can feel the brush of its wings, to profound sadness when she sees a bird that looks puffed up and realizes it is ill and probably dying. That leads to the practical action of emptying and cleaning her feeders so that she doesn’t spread the infection to other birds.

The book offers a selection of her entries, each accompanied with her sketches. She identifies species, telling us distinguishing marks. She makes detailed observations of their behavior, often accompanied by questions. For example, on May 22,2020, she watches baby titmice feeding. She identifies the leader, notes how the birds eat, sometimes attempting to eat things too big for them, sometimes taking and rejecting items like sun chips. All this is captured in a drawing on the facing page.

Along the way, Tan unashamedly displays her obsession with backyard bird, describing at length various types of feeders, efforts to discourage squirrels, and the variety and prodigious amounts of bird food she buys, including the mealworms she stores in their refrigerator. Needless to say, she has a supportive husband!

In addition to the journal sketches, Tan includes detailed drawings of various birds in fine detail. These approach the quality of an Audubon work. Tan’s skills of observation and description are evident in these drawings and throughout the text.

Tan’s enthusiasm about birds makes one think differently about the birds in one’s own backyard and surroundings. While not heavy-handed, we sense her awareness of these precious lives to be preserved. She sees the effects of nearby wildfires. She rescues injured birds, and grieves when they don’t make it. And if she has inspired you, she offers a list of the books, apps, and other resources she found helpful. All in all, this book is a delight to the eyes and food for the spirit.

Don’t be surprised if this book makes at least a backyard birder out of you! show less

Backyard Bird Chronicles - Tan
5 stars

I’m a birder. I’ve been actively bird watching with bird guides and binoculars for more than 30 years. I keep lists. I’ve rarely traveled specifically to look for birds, but I fit my bird walks in where I can. Southern California is a great place for birding. There’s always my backyard.

Amy Tan lives in the San Francisco Bay area. I’m sure her backyard is in a higher rent zone than mine. We look out on different habitats. Still, I recognized all of the species that she reported seeing in her backyard. She has some that don’t visit my feeders, and I have a few that will never grace her yard. I propped her book in my kitchen table book stand, drank my coffee, and interspersed my own show more backyard identification with pages of her nature journal. I shared her backyard observations and it felt like I was sharing mine.

Her observations delighted and inspired me. I added hot pepper suet to discourage marauding squirrels on her recommendation. (It works!). I added another bird bath and varied the food a bit. I do give the birds dried mealworms sometimes, but I haven't quite the dedication that Tan has. I haven’t bought live mealworms for the backyard buffet. Yet.

I keep lists. I note species, numbers of birds, weather and occasionally interesting behavior. I cannot draw. Amy Tan isn’t only a writer, she’s an artist. This book is derived from her nature journal. She draws her backyard bird activity. Her sketches are annotated. Her drawings have speech captions as she imagines exactly what might be going on in those little bird brains. Her drawings are both comical and informative. Her finished portraits are beautiful. This is a book that needs to be read in its paperbound edition. The e-book doesn’t reproduce the drawings adequately and the audiobook misses out on them altogether. show less

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan was even more enjoyable than I expected. A glimpse into both the life of a wonderful writer and the world of relatively common birds.

I am not a birder. I love when I can watch them close-up, maybe when they don't know I'm just a couple of feet away on the other side of a window or when I am at a park and I notice their activity. But I don't go out specifically to watch birds. So no matter what some may think, this does not require some grounding in birdwatching or even a particularly strong interest in them (outside of loving our fellow creatures).

I found the diary/journal entries to be much more engaging than I expected. I knew the writing would be good I just didn't realize how contagious Tan's show more curiosity would be. Some entries made me want to pay closer attention to birds I see regularly but more than that I gained a better appreciation for viewing the world around me with a more compassionate type of curiosity.

The drawings are wonderful, even the ones she claims aren't very good. I found that they managed, when coupled with the entries, to make me feel I was looking at a bird with a distinct personality rather than a drawing of a "type."

Recommended for readers who simply enjoy going on a curiosity-fueled journey with a talented writer and artist. You don't have to be an avid birdwatcher as long as you're capable of feeling compassion for both the human and the many birds you take this journey with.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

This is one of the few books that I had to be convinced to pick up. I'd seen it in bookstores, thought the cover was pretty, and then put it back down and moved on. I think part of the reason was that I associated Amy Tan with Chinese-American stories, and not with nature or art. I only gave the book a second glance when my parents invited me to join them at a talk Tan was giving about the book, and then once there I enjoyed myself so much that I bought a copy of the book and stood in line to have Amy Tan sign it.

I really enjoyed it. The illustrations are gorgeous, the sketches are cute, and she makes up stories about some of the birds (or squirrels) and what they may be thinking as she watches them at the feeders. Granted, some (okay, show more okay, most or all) of the feelings that she attributes to the birds, especially in the early journal pages are pure anthropomorphism. It's not likely that we as humans can properly understand what the birds are thinking as they look around the yard. But still, having watched a bird or two myself, I understand the motivation to start telling a story about the birds.

I enjoyed seeing the growth in her drawings, though the book starts with her bird drawings already to the recognizable stage, so she'd been through a lot of practice already at that point. The full detailed portraits that she drew of some of the birds (as opposed to the sketches featured throughout most of the book) are absolutely stunning. Some of the stories in the book are ones I'd heard her relate during the talk, and reading them on my own, months later, brought my memories of how excited she was to talk about her birds and the things she learned from them. This is not my usual kind of book, but I really enjoyed it. show less

The humor, beauty, and insight the author weaves into her birding journal are truly breathtaking. I have never laughed so much while reading a birding journal. Tan has transformed the tradition of observation and nature journaling into a unique blend of comic storytelling, meditation, and joy.

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight.

Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an show more attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Right reader, wrong book? Right book, wrong time? Dunno. I'm surfeited on the buffet of bon-bons, the smorgasbord of sweetmeats, the pomander of perfumed paragraphs in this book.

Maybe having the Felonious Yam and his diktat-signing autopen back in power makes this feel more like irresponsible escapism than it would have had the recent election not gone the way it did.

Knopf needs $14.99 to send to their corporate masters in Germany. Passionate birders and Tan-stans are going to whatever I say. show less

I had a blog decades ago that I named...something-something Chronicles...and I'm currently interested in birds/nature. Maybe a little obsessed with birds -- I credit Christian Cooper (his infectious enthusiasm has me paying attention to who's singing around me). I was especially interested in reading books about birds from women and non-white voices, so the algorithm suggested this lovely little tome.

Successful author, Amy Tan, who lives in a majestic, many-windowed home in Sausalito, CA (where the cost of living is like 1000% higher than the rest of the country), buys hundreds (thousands?) of dollars worth of wild bird seed/worms/suet every month to keep her many birdfeeders well-stocked for her feathered friends. (She jokes that she show more never had kids so she spends what would've been college tuition on the birds.) In this book, we see snippets of her nature journal (a skill she learned from her teacher and friend John Muir Laws — she's in his group, she goes birding with him, he's got a lovely, informative website). She took those quick notes she jotted down about the birds in her yard and expanded on some of them for this book which also includes some of her beautiful drawings.

This is a lovely book, Tan is a talented artist (and writer, duh); but it is definitely NOT what I would call relatable. (Remember that Netflix special Ellen did called Relatable...which further proved to me she was no longer relatable?). However, there are aspects that ARE relatable -- I've definitely asked some of the same questions Tan asked and gone on an information gathering adventure to learn more about the desert birds around me. I've seen birds with injured legs and watched sparrows take their final breaths after window collisions (and investigated how to stop window collisions). And I too turned to nature when the world got bleaker. But overall, I think I would've preferred just her nature journal without the added text -- just the drawings and those quickly scribbled notes, please and thank you.

No one was asking for this (or maybe I was...I did buy a copy). I don't know; something just feels forced. I read Alice Walker's The Chicken Chronicles last year which was a repackaging of blog posts about her chicken-tender adventures. Both feel like publishers desperate for titles from known authors. It's like celebrities starting vodka brands and leggings companies -- just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. Or should you? I haven't bought any celebrity vodka or leggings, but maybe I should?

I don't know where I'm going with this other than I would rather have a glimpse into the life of someone who doesn't have seemingly unlimited resources for bird feeding. Not just monetary resources, but also TIME - responsible wild bird-feeding involves lots of disinfecting and cleaning and refilling. I certainly don't have the money to spend or the fridge space to store thousands of live worms. I started The Birds at My Table: Why We Feed Wild Birds and Why It Matters around the same time as this one, and combined, they've convinced me I am not cut-out to host wild birds beyond the doves and sparrows that hang out with my chickens.

At least not with birdfeeders. I am interested in adding more native plants to my yard (I'm not at that part of the Jones book, but he does talk about it). Of course that native-plants-lightbulb moment came for me after reading Camille Dungy's Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden and visiting the Rio Salado Audubon Center and the Desert Botanical Garden and knowing my weaknesses -- I will not clean a hummingbird feeder weekly (and I love a run-on sentence).

I am glad I pre-ordered a physical copy instead of the ebook, but I also could've waited to check it out from the library show less