The Backyard Bird Chronicles

by Amy Tan

The Backyard Bird Chronicles contains excerpts from hundreds of pages gleaned from nine personal journals filled with sketches and handwritten notes of naive observations of birds in my backyard. I humorously titled the journals The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which delivers “breaking news,” “new offerings,” and “scientific discoveries.”

The only birds that don’t eat suet are the hummingbirds and the finches. It’s odd to me that none of the finches will touch it, not the House Finch, the Lesser Goldfinch, or the Pine Siskin. They are seed and thistle eaters, and don’t seem to deviate from that, not even for mealworms as a pigs-in-a-blanket kind of appetizer. They eat seeds, nuts, and berries, a vegan diet. Hey, I eat a vegan diet, too. Now I understand. I, too, wouldn’t touch pork fat and insect antennae.

Now that the migrants are returning in greater numbers, I have added more feeders to each of the four locations: the patio, the verandah, the office porch, and on the other side of the bathroom window. Sichuan Sunflower Seeds. Vindaloo Suet Mini Balls. Farm-raised Mealworms. Vegan Nectar. Spicy Suet. Nuts & Chews & Bugs. Nyjer Nirvana. Graines Pour Oiseaux Sauvages. Alaskan Taste Water. These are signs of my descent into madness.

used to think birds were eating grit because they were starving—what a cruel world. I have since learned that grit in the bird’s gizzard aids in digestion. “It’s good for you,” one can imagine the adult saying to her skeptical babies.

I was tardy in sorting a fresh shipment of 6,000 mealworms into containers. They sat in the extra fridge in the guest studio. For thirty-six hours, the birds looked in the bowls, confused that there were no live mealworms. They had to make do with suet cakes, suet balls, sunflower seeds, millet, Nyjer, safflower seeds, and butter bark—meaning, nobody should feel sorry for them.