Episodes
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Amy Tan is best known for her novels, especially The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Her latest book is The Backyard Bird Chronicles, which details her love affair with birds. When she was 64 years old, she reached out to hummingbirds, and they took her on a journey into the heart of birdwatching. "I heard the staticky sound of a hummingbird. It was a male. I had left the feeder on the table where I was sitting. I put it on my palm and held it out. Within 10 seconds, the hummingbird came over, landed on my hand, and immediately started feeding. I held my breath and kept my hand with the feeder still as possible. His feet felt scratchy. He was assessing me the whole time he fed. We stared at each other eye to eye… He had acknowledged me. We have a relationship. I am in love."
Her love of birds prompted her to take a nature drawing class where she learned how to sketch birds. She quickly became obsessed. Her yard became an intriguing scene, where she observed an unending parade of visitors from around the world, connecting her to bird migration and the profundity of nature. "Thanks to the birds, I have never felt cooped up staying at home. So much remains new, so much can be discovered… When watching birds, I feel free."
Birds also helped Kyo Maclear feel free; she is another amazing writer who came to love birds later in life. Her approach to birdwatching is outlined in her beautiful book Birds Art Life. Kyo mirrors Amy Tan's view of birding. "The goal in birding, you will discover, is to become as quiet and invisible as possible, and the easiest way to do this is to stay in one place, minimizing your wake of disturbance. When you stop with your fast movements, your sudden noises, and unnecessary fidgeting, the birds (even the nervous perching varieties) may begin to respect you, by which I mean ignore you."
Amy's sketches improved as she learned more about birds, which started a virtuous cycle of observation, sketching, and connection. All of this is fueled by curiosity. Amy’s innate curiosity was enhanced by a chance meeting with a 13-year-old girl named Fiona Gillogy. Fiona was part of a nature drawing class that Amy attended. At first, she was annoyed by Fiona's constant questions, but then she saw that Fiona embodied a beginner's mind; she was deeply curious and engaged with nature. Amy started lurking near Fiona, and they became friends. Fiona became her bird mentor. Together, Amy and Fiona followed the deeply human urge to watch birds.
Amy gave herself permission to pursue what she loved. She discovered that you can follow your curiosity, grow and change at your own pace, and follow your own rhythm. You do not have to conform to our overly technological and algorithmic culture. Doing so is dehumanizing and demoralizing. It forces you to live inside a box made by someone else. A better approach is to take your cues from the muse. This creative force lives within you. All it needs is a small opening and permission to flow. Just let go, and your thoughts can fly like a bird.
Living a more natural life that is in tune with our inner needs is hard. It often takes an accident, illness, or epiphany to break through our conditioning and the desire for more. Complications from undiagnosed Lyme Disease made Amy Tan slow down enough to see the birds. A mid-life transition helped Kyo Maclear … and me … open up to birds.
I highly recommend embracing this transition at any point in your life. The experience is painful and challenging, but sublime beauty awaits on the other side. The key is slowing down. The beauty was there all along, but we tend to move too fast to notice it. When you step off the modern high-speed treadmill of life, you are left standing still and a bit bewildered. You start to return to your senses. A new world comes into focus as your old concerns are whisked away. This experience may precipitate a strange new thought: Maybe I am enough just as I am. Maybe I don't need more … maybe I need less. Yes!
Enter the tiny birds. Now, you can place a miniature hummingbird feeder in the palm of your hand and reach out to life. Kyo Maclear has an entire chapter devoted to smallness in Birds Art Life, where she describes the beauty of small, realistic goals. "I like smallness. I like the perverse audacity of someone aiming tiny. Together, we would make a symbolic pilgrimage to the wellspring of the minuscule."
When Amy Tan started feeding birds in her yard, she whistled to them as she put out seeds and mealworms. The birds started calling back to her. She took great delight in common birds. "I am still new to birding, so every bird is a good bird to see."
This includes the Oak Titmice that nest in her yard in California. She observed them at her feeders, where she put out mini suet balls and live mealworms. During the spring, she noted the courtship behavior, which prompted her to set out alpaca wool that the female titmouse used to line her nest. If all went well, the whole titmouse family would show up a few weeks later.
I was struck by the many similarities between Amy's experience and mine. We have a family of titmice that shows up at our feeders about this time every year. They are noisy and conspicuous. The parents are still feeding their young, but you can tell it won't be long before the young feed themselves.
I watched one young titmouse hop around our cherry tree. I saw her peck the trunk and, to her great surprise, catch an insect that she held in her bill. It was clear that she did not quite know what to do next. She eventually ate the insect, but it was a slow, awkward process. As soon as she swallowed the insect, one of her parents flew in and perched above her. She immediately started begging for food. This whole episode must have made her tired. She promptly flew down to our pond, got a drink, and then fell asleep on a rock.
Intimate close encounters with birds are healing. They are available to anyone with perseverance, patience, and curiosity. Kyo Maclear notes, "Even though you will inevitably discover that not everything within the spectrum of human desire is instantly available to you, your patience may be rewarded. You will encounter reluctant and well-hidden things. These things may be fleeting and fading, and without any obvious payoff, but you will discover that the realm of birding is also, sometimes, the realm of miracles."
After years of watching birds in her yard, Amy Tan shares a final insight. "If there is anything I have learned these past six years, it is this: Each bird is surprising and thrilling in its own way. But the most special is the bird that pauses when it is eating, looks and acknowledges that I am there, then goes back to what it was doing."
I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Essays like this one are a labor of love. They do not appear out of the blue like a hummingbird at your feeder. They rely on my decades of experience working as a biologist and farmer. If you are not already part of our growing community of paying members, please consider an upgrade. Thank you!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit billdavison.substack.com/subscribe -
Singing trees adorned with a ring of gold stand out in the spring woods. American Goldfinch choirs gather amidst bright green, unfurling leaves and fill the air with a continuous harmony. The males wear their brilliant yellow and black spring attire. Females are also in attendance, joining the musical festival to assess the males’ color, singing, and agility on the wing. The music begins with a few quiet voices, then quickly swells into a resounding chorus. The most elaborate, jaunty songs of the year pour forth from the finches, electrifying the landscape.
The joy of spring is made palpable as goldfinches sing in the sunlight for hours on end. Individuals come and go, but the chorus persists. It serves as a clarion call and draws finches in from the surrounding area. Blue Jays, Crows, House Finches, Chipping Sparrows, and Black-capped Chickadees perching nearby fall silent and appear to enjoy the performance.
When a large group gathers, there is much chasing. Two birds often start out zipping around the canopy, and others join in, seemingly for the fun of it. On occasion, the whole flock will take off and fly up into the sky above the trees, where they fly in circles, pursuing each other while singing. They drift in and out of clouds, passing by white and blue backgrounds and putting on a remarkable show of fitness. It is hard to fathom the energy required to fly at high speeds while singing. It is a joy to watch them. They make me so happy.
Modern scientific accounts drily describe this remarkable phenomenon of song assemblies by saying, “American Goldfinches follow the cardueline habit of forming pair bonds in pre-breeding flocks.” Historical accounts are more colorful and better at capturing the feeling you have when among the finches. Wilson Flagg describes American Goldfinches in his book A Year with the Birds written in 1889:
"These little birds are remarkable for associating at a certain season and singing as it were in choirs. During spring and summer, says Mr Fowler, they rove about in small flocks and in July will assemble together in considerable numbers on a particular tree seemingly for no other purpose than to sing. These concerts are held by them on the forenoon of each day for a week or ten days, after which they soon build their nests. I am inclined to believe that this is the time of their courtship and that they have a purpose in their meetings beside that of singing. If perchance one is heard in the air, the males utter their call note with great emphasis, particularly if the new comer be a female, and while in her undulating flight she describes a circle preparatory to alighting, they will stand almost erect, move their heads to the right and left, and burst simultaneously into song.
While engaged in these concerts, it would seem as if they were governed by some rule that enabled them to time their voices and to swell or diminish the volume of sound Some of this effect is undoubtedly produced by the gradual manner in which the different voices join in harmony beginning with one or two and increasing their numbers in rapid succession until all are singing at once and then in the same gradual manner becoming silent. One voice leads on another, the numbers multiplying until they make a loud shout which dies away gradually and a single voice winds up the chorus. These concerts are repeated at intervals for several days, ending probably with the period of courtship."
John Burroughs made note of this phenomenon in the early 1900's.
"When the change in plumage is complete, and the males have got their bright uniforms of yellow and black, the courting begins. All the goldfinches of a neighborhood collect together and hold a sort of musical festival. To the number of many dozens they may be seen in some large tree, all singing and calling the most joyous and vivacious manner. The males sing, and the female chirp and call. Whether there is actual competition on a trial of musical abilities of the males before the females or not, I do not know. The best of feeling seems to pervade the company; there is no sign of quarreling or fighting; 'all goes merry as a marriage bell,' and the matches seem actually to be made during these musical picnics. I have known the goldfinches to keep up this musical and love-making festival through three consecutive days of a cold northeast rainstorm."
During the performance, erratic sexual chases occur. Males follow females in fast, twisting flight as they circle the choir. A female tests the males by seeing if they can fly at high speed through the canopy and around the tree trunks - up and down and over and through - and stick with her through thick and thin. She is picky due to her habit of abandoning her first brood and leaving the male to finish caring for the young so she can attempt to raise a second brood with a different male.
The singing trees emanate an ode to joy that has been sung every spring for millions of years. Our ancestors were intimately connected to the finches, and as a result, we are wired to appreciate birdsong. The more we hear it, the more meaning our lives have. The birds are calling to show us the path to a meaningful life shaped by the ability to pay attention and be present in the moment. They know we are part of nature and are waiting for us to join the chorus.
The goldfinches surround us with a beautiful, energetic field. Their chorus sets us vibrating, and joy reverberates through our bodies. They are our companions. Our voices and their voices are carried by the same soft spring wind. We can join the chorus and enhance the harmony by getting curious and dropping into the sensory experience of being human. Connecting with the finches requires that you lead with your body, not your mind.
Lean into the song; lean into your inherent creativity. Visualize the song in colors. Paint, draw, sing. Engage the right side of your brain where imagination, creativity, intuition, rhythm, and feelings reside, and watch your anxiety take flight, leaving you standing awash in wonder.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars' ears and back…
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.
Jo Harjo
Essays like this one are a labor of love. They do not appear out of the blue like an American Goldfinch chorus. They rely on my decades of experience working as a biologist and farmer. If you are not already part of our growing community of paying members, please consider an upgrade. Thank you!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit billdavison.substack.com/subscribe -
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