The Backyard Bird Chronicles

by Amy Tan

A junco sat on top of another cage feeder and watched the rat. Do birds experience something akin to spectator amusement? The rat looked up at the feeder on the ceramic planter. It did not try climbing the slippery sides. It leapt up, no problem—shit!—then grabbed the bars of the cage and looked at the hanging feeder just out of reach. Minutes passed, and I was about to declare victory when, in a split-second blur, the rat somehow sprang into the cage, grabbed a huge chunk of suet, and jumped to the ground, leaving the bowl swinging wildly. The rat furiously chowed down, as her kids watched from the side. Suddenly, the rat shot up as if electrocuted, and ran up the rock wall. Its reaction reminded me of naive diners at a Japanese restaurant who slather onto their maki a dollop of wasabi, as if it were butter, then jump up from their seats, gasping for a fire extinguisher. The extra pepper dusting had done the trick. No more rat raids. But after a few seconds, the fat rat returned and resumed eating the fiery suet it had dropped. I chased it off but it managed to take the chunk of suet with it. The rat kids have now learned a valuable life lesson: Never give up. You can adapt to anything, be it a heap of rotting garbage in a landfill or tricky bird feeders laced with 100 megahertz chili suet in the lovely garden of a writer.