Amy Tan started feeding the birds in her backyard in 2016. The jacket blurb of this illustrated diary of her experiences suggests that she began doing this because she was feeling discouraged about the state of human society, though in the text that is left unstated, perhaps implicit. Instead the book focuses on her growing understanding of and intimate familiarity with the birds as she watches and draws them, following her observations through 2022.
She cheerfully admits she's not a scientist, but she certainly thinks like one! She constantly poses questions about the birds, noticing behaviors and offering conjectures to explain them, learning from other birders and her empirical observations. How do the birds adapt to her presence, and how do they react when she goes out of town? How do individuals and species share or compete for the resources she offers? Sometimes she actively tests them; some birds only forage on the ground, but if she places a feeder on the ground and raises it a little every day, will they learn new skills? She knows she doesn't know everything, and learning delights her. Sometimes she writes something that is wrong or incomplete, and corrects herself later in the book when she learns more.
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She cheerfully admits she's not a scientist, but she certainly thinks like one! She constantly poses questions about the birds, noticing behaviors and offering conjectures to explain them, learning from other birders and her empirical observations. How do the birds adapt to her presence, and how do they react when she goes out of town? How do individuals and species share or compete for the resources she offers? Sometimes she actively tests them; some birds only forage on the ground, but if she places a feeder on the ground and raises it a little every day, will they learn new skills? She knows she doesn't know everything, and learning delights her. Sometimes she writes something that is wrong or incomplete, and corrects herself later in the book when she learns more.
( Read more... )
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