41 pages • 1 hour read
Amy TanThe Backyard Bird Chronicles
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 2-43Chapter Summaries & Analyses
September 16, 2017–December 30, 2018 Summary
Tan’s journal opens with a hummingbird sitting in a hand. After some trial and error, she learns the proper ratio of water to sugar and finds the right kind of feeders to bring hummingbirds to her yard. She wants to lure one to sit on her hand and drink from a Lilliputian hummingbird feeder. She is surprised when a hummingbird takes to it quickly and repeatedly before hovering in front of her face, looking her directly in the eyes. Tan thinks about John Muir Laws’s advice to “be the bird” and wonders how the hummingbird knows that she is trustworthy: “Was he curious? Was he being aggressive, warning me that he owned the feeder? Whatever his meaning, he had come back. He had acknowledged me. We have a relationship. I am in love” (4).
Another encounter with a pine siskin is less enchanting. While watching the bird on the feeder, Tan notes that its plumage is coming off in tufts the way a juvenile’s does. She realizes the pine siskin is sick from a salmonellosis outbreak. When she tries to draw the bird later, she feels the final sketch lacks the aliveness of the bird she observed. Her original joy has been lost to what she now knows about the bird.
After the epidemic ends and warm weather arrives, the pine siskins return in full health, and a group of newly hatched quail scurries out from beneath a bush. As Tan watches them, she wonders about their ability to survive, especially compared to their relatives who are more skilled at flying. Baby crows learn from their mother how to knock a swinging bird feeder to scatter the sunflower seeds on the ground. One of the crows misses and is then scared, refusing to try again.
Tan enjoys watching all the young birds learn from their parents. Fledgling scrub jays struggle to figure out how to obtain seed from cage feeders. She notes the persistence of the birds. When one fledgling fails repeatedly to hold onto the cage correctly and obtain a seed, it continues to cry.
The birds’ activity does not cease when summer ends. In November, an Anna’s hummingbird, a vibrant and iridescent species, comes to feed. Tan watches as the hummingbird uses its tiny feet to slide toward a female on the branch of an oak tree in an act of courtship. The female hummingbird flies away. When a wildfire sends most of the birds away from Tan’s yard and keeps her inside, she continues to monitor her feeders closely from the bathroom window. She sees only a squirrel and a Bewick’s wren. When the smoke clears, finches fight over feeder position.
In December, Tan spots a new bird for her: a Townsend’s warbler. She practices what John Muir Laws taught her, talking to herself through the observation to aid in memory. She notes the Townsend’s warblers have their own rules, such as only one bird per feeder. They also eat all day. At the end of the month, a commotion occurs when a flock of crows notices a dummy crow that Tan placed in her yard. The sight of the dead fake crow was meant to deter the unruly flock from overtaking her bird feeder. In her sketchbook, she fictionalizes the speculation and investigation of the death of their fallen friend.
As the year comes to a close, Tan makes a new discovery. The female Anna’s hummingbirds come to the feeder more often when Tan is standing near it, as though her presence might help protect them from pushy males.
Pages 2-43 Analysis
When reading Tan’s work and examining her sketches, it is important to consider her nature journal as an ongoing process of learning. If readers were to casually flip through the pages of The Backyard Bird Chronicles, they would note a stark contrast in the quality of drawing from the first page to the last. Tan addresses the evolution of her skills as an artist in the Preface, explaining that her early sketches lacked accuracy and showed the amateur level of her skill at the time.
While her drawings provide practical information about birds and the day and time of her observations, they also provide insight into the themes of the work and Tan’s journey as an artist and learner. The opening illustration highlights a hummingbird eating from a Lilliputian feeder in Tan’s hand. She watches the bird for 45 seconds, mentally taking in everything she can before committing the sight to paper. The interaction between bird and human is more prevalent in her early drawings, while later sketches focus on birds in more natural environments and situations. A lack of detail in the first drawing as compared to later works shows that Tan is still developing her skills in The Art of Paying Attention.
Tan notes in the Preface that she was surprised when looking through her nature journals to see how many of her early sketches are akin to cartoons. Drawings of pine siskins (9) are an example of this. The birds are crowded together on tree limbs, with sunflower chips falling from their agape mouths. Another drawing shows a group of fledgling crows mocking a sibling for being too afraid to knock seed from a swinging bird feeder. On Page 19, baby scrub jays struggle to get a grip of a cage feeder and become embarrassed. Tan’s comic style reveals her affinity for narrative and her focus on understanding the experience of the birds she observes.
Tan learns that an important part of paying attention is accepting that some of her questions will go unanswered. Yet, the questions remain important as Tan embraces Inquiry as a Path to Understanding. In many of her entries, Tan poses a question about a bird she is watching that leads to others. A strange behavior or a pattern inspires her to wonder about the choices and relationships of her avian study subjects. At times, these questions appear in quick succession, each begetting another: “I saw a female at another patio feeder this afternoon sipping without interruption. Is it just one female who is doing this? Or is a suffragist movement taking place? Is this the start of the nesting season?” (42). Sometimes her inquiries lead her to exciting discoveries. Often, however, they remain mysteries.
After watching an Anna’s hummingbird and trying to figure out the meaning of the motions and clicking sounds it makes, Tan admits defeat. She observes a golden-crowned sparrow chase away another sparrow, only for the defeated bird to return and eat along the outer edge of the pile in a subservient manner. Tan wonders if this was a dominance ritual. Her questions might lack answers, but they are indicative of what she learned from John Muir Laws: to emphasize the practice over the product. Answering her questions is not as important as asking them, which allows her to grow intentional curiosity and participate in new ways of seeing. It is less important for Tan to discover why things happen than to notice them in the first place.
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By Amy Tan
