The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Tan grows in confidence and pride in her birding abilities. She begins to understand the cycles of birds more intimately and is attuned when something is out of the ordinary. When pine siskins arrive after fighting off disease, a red-tailed hawk appears in Tan’s yard, threatening the returned birds. Tan reminds herself to avoid rooting for one or the other. She designs new ways to observe birds more closely, such as building a small, caged feeder and placing it against a glass door so that she can crouch next to it and wait.

This section also shows evidence of the pandemic and other external contexts on Tan’s birding and interpretations of patterns. Wildfires send new species to her yard: a Western meadowlark, a black-headed grosbeak, and a hermit warbler—a species considered rare. Observing birds helps Tan to feel as though she is not cooped up. She gathers with friends on her verandah, each person ten feet away from the others. Together, they observe the birds moving around in Tan’s backyard. One of her friends can hear two woodpeckers knocking to one another, and it reminds Tan that she needs to invest in getting a hearing aid. She does not want to miss anything for loss of hearing.