Latest / NaturallyScott / E76 Amy Tan – Backyard Birds, Art & Finding Wonder Close to Home 🐦🎨

Transcript

E76 Amy Tan – Backyard Birds, Art & Finding Wonder Close to Home 🐦🎨 · NaturallyScott

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Naturally Scott.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Scott Harris, and I know I say this frequently, but I am thrilled about today's guest and really looking forward to sharing some of her stories with you.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think you're going to be fascinated by them.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I was.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and for regular listeners, you know that we alternate between having a human guest and then uh kind of an adventure show on somewhere where I visited and seen some different animals and stuff.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: But today we have a New York Times best-selling author with us, Amy Tan.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Amy, welcome.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to be here.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am thrilled that you are here.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you've published a number of books.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine Joy Luck Club is one of the better known of your titles.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the one that grabbed my attention, and I will tell you, I had at least a half dozen people who read your book and said, you have to have Amy on your show because her book is just fascinating.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had put it away when I thought we had some trouble, but now I've got it back.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the Backyard Bird Chronicles, which is written by Amy Tan.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think equally important, it is illustrated by you, Amy.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I will tell you, I, you know, you've got a foreword there by David Allen Sibley, and I think your illustrations match up well with David's, with Ken Kaufman's, um, with Audubon's.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: They are they are brilliant, and I love the way I can tell you lots of differences why they aren't nearly as good, but thank you so much for the compliment.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you are welcome.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and Amy's been gracious enough, she's going to send us some of her stuff, so we'll show it up here and we'll let our watchers uh make their own choices on what they think.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's fantastic.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to discuss the Backyard Bird Chronicles.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, Amy, tell us if you would, the metamorphosis of this book.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the book was born out of sheer despair.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was just discombobulated by what was going on in the world in terms of racism, and it was directed toward me.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I needed to find a place where that was beautiful again.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I went back into nature, and then I decided to do what I had loved as a child, and that is drawing.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided to take art classes and learn to do nature journaling.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that eventually led to my discovery that my yard actually had a lot of birds, and they became my subject.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: So while learning about nature, birds, and drawing, I created a journal.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Never meant to be published.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was a private journal, and hence there are a lot of mistakes in there.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: But my editor was the one who decided that it should be published.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Who knew?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Who knew?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you could thank him or her for us, the book is a treat.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um each page, whether it's whether it's uh something you've written or something you've drawn.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I especially like the notes on so many of your drawings um and deciphering those.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I'm fascinated by it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a neat process that you shared with the world.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um now I know from reading some of the cover notes um that in addition to the racism you were concerned about social media and the impact that was having um on uh on the world.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is that still a concern of yours?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's always a concern, and I think it is so for many people because it's hard to discern what's real um uh out there, what is news and what is just influencer talk.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so, yes, I think any writer is concerned about what is out there and how it's being presented.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, I think social media, you know, serves a really great purpose.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um and we have to be selective in how we use it, both how we receive it and how we send it out.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I find myself using it less and less with the increase in AI because I no longer believe or trust what I read or see.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I started that before, but now it's just so hard to tell if it's real or if it's just, you know, clickbait or rage click or whatever they call it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, that's uh that's a frightening thing.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: If if if it gets to the point where we're not able to trust our media, um I'm not confident that we can survive that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll I'll tell you something funny is that when I write posts, I don't proofread.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is a terrible thing for a writer not to do, but I I just send them out and sometimes they're so riddled with mistakes.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had once a reader on my Facebook page say, this is not Amy Tan writing this.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's terrible writing.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Either somebody's hacked her page or she is, you know, hired somebody who can't write.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I had to write back and say, I'm really sorry.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: That was such a sloppy post.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm cleaning it up.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: It really was me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and I'm just I just am very sloppy about how I do my posts.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I do them on an iPhone at night, and I I can't see that well, and it's in a in a rush.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there, yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know, do you know at night what you're going to post, or are you lying there and it suddenly hits you and you think, I've got to address this issue?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean most of my posts, I will occasionally write very serious posts, but most um many of my posts are just very lighthearted.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: So for ex, I I haven't posted for a very long time.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And weeks will go by, even months will go by, and I don't post.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then today I thought, oh, I'm gonna post something about going back to a place I lived where I lived for a year when I was 16, shortly after the deaths of my father and my brother.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's where I got into a lot of trouble.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a picture of me, beautiful setting, looks idyllic, um, Montreal Switzerland.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that was where I got arrested and nearly eloped with somebody, and where my mother nearly killed me, um, where I flunked some classes because I didn't study, I stayed up all night, and where I did my SATs and got in the 400s in English, but the 700s in Spanish.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that was a lot having to do with boyfriend, not you know, not having sleep, all of that.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Crazy year, but here I am.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't ruin me forever.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like a pretty good, excuse me, year in the life book.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's an adventure story for sure.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's let's move into your book.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: What was the role that COVID played in in your book, in your journaling and and all that went with it?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: COVID eliminated the guilt that I had for sitting there all day long watching birds and drawing.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we were commanded to stay in our homes and not see people.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a luxury for me to do that, you know, and to to honestly say, I'm sorry, I can't go to your event, I can't leave and do this and that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had this concentrated time.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: It it was also, it would have been an ideal time for me to write a novel with, you know, so much uh this the freedom of time in my schedule.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: But it just so happened that I was so enamored with birds at that time, I just couldn't stop.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so there I am sitting in front of an 8 by 12 window door uh that is right before my dining room, and I can see the birds just 10 feet away from me doing all kinds of antics.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And how could I stop?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: So there I am in solitude with the birds.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I was one who did not suffer during the shutdown.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it sounds like you did a terrific job of keeping things going.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Was it what was it that brought back the passion for birds?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as a child, I loved nature, but it was primarily um creatures on the ground.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I used to catch snakes, for example, and lizards and frogs, and I loved butterflies and all of those creatures that I could find on the ground.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was very nearsighted.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I probably that is the reason why I didn't notice birds.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: I noticed crows.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was afraid of black, big black birds because of having seen the movie The Birds.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh every now and then I'd go uh see birds when I was backpacking.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: My husband and I were big backpackers in those days.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: That was our vacation.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I again didn't notice that many birds.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when I deliberately started to look at birds in my yard, I thought initially I had maybe three: a hummingbird, a crow, and a robin.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I discovered by looking, I could see those little brown jobs were really different species of birds.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And to this date, I just got my 73rd bird of the yard.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was a black-throated gray warbler, which is a pretty good bird to get in your yard.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: I even have photographs of it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a great bird.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great bird.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and this last week I also had a black-headed gross beak, which does not come that often.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're usually off course when they come.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I also had Wilson's warblers, which to me they're they don't come that often, but it's an indication to me that the migration season is beginning.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when I get when I get warblers in my yard, then I know something is in the air, so to speak.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are you still able to carve out a little time to spend in your backyard?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, still a little too much time.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um I, for example, it takes a lot of time to fill the feeders every day because I give them uh a gourmet meal.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's live mealworms, which are very costly now because the, you know, there's something that happened at the supply chain, and they're like$100 for$5,000.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: They used to be like$30 for$5,000.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I, and then there's walnuts, you know, whole walnuts, and I break them up a little, but they love carrying out these gigantic pieces.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have suet, hot pepper suet with the best insects in them.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have sunflower seeds, hot pepper sunflower seeds, and also safflower.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the things, and it takes a while to fill that up.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, I have to change the water in 10 different bowls.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I do change the the birdbath uh drinking water every single day.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it and that all and then uh hummingbird feeders, I have about eight of those.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and yesterday I had to refill them, so that takes a lot of time.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have we live on a lake here in South Carolina, and so it's about five or six hundred feet from the lake to the top of the street.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a slight slope going down.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we built a little creek bed and we pump water up to the top of the street and then let it flow back down naturally into the lake.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are very popular with the birds.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I can imagine.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's always clean and always fresh, so we don't have those assholes.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in reading your book, you you certainly had empathy for all of the birds in your backyard.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so um uh I wanted to ask you both.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: It it seemed like maybe the Anna's hummingbird was your favorite of the birds.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Are you allowing yourself a favorite?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, that's like asking if what child is your favorite, you know.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um I there are favorites I have for different reasons.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I love the Annas.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of the first birds that captivated me that was in my yard.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it also came to my hand to feed from my hand.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I love the tit mouse, the oak titmouse, because he's just he's a clown.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's so funny.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's just a little pipsqueak, and he's just, you know, scolding me and scolding other birds, and he's just tiny, you know.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I love the great horned owl who came, two of them came and lived in our yard.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: The it was a mother and her son, and the mother stayed from July till October, and then she was finished training him, and she left as expected, and he stayed until April.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think he would have stayed longer, but we had rain continuously, and he would come back later and later with drenched feathers, and you you know, I just knew it was hard for him to fly back, and eventually he stopped coming.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he would come back with his girlfriend every now and then on two Thanksgivings.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: He brought his girlfriend.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really sweet.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to love the Great Horned Owl for both consistency, mag and and as well as magnificence.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a bonus, they cleaned up the rats in the ivy next door, and those rats were coming into our yard daily.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I was very, very grateful to them for being the natural exterminators.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're amazing how many they'll go through.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um we had, I'm sure we had a thousand.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we had so many rats, and that they took care of them.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think they can eat a thousand a year or something.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're amazing.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they're also stunningly beautiful.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I wrote a book called Raptor Quest, where I spent a year chasing the 53 raptors that call the kind of U.S.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: home and and uh the Great Horn, you know, you see them around, but um every time I saw one, it was just it was just spectacular.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, and you can imagine waking up and my husband saying, Mom and Junior are here.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they had just flown in, usually they flew in by seven o'clock, and and then I would go and look out the window without binoculars, and there they were.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's how close they were.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's an absolute treat.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they are they are badass birds.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was on a raptor rescue team for about three years, and so when we would go pick up raptors, or I'd go out and pick up raptors, I would wear falconry gloves to pick up, you know, the various hawks and and osprey or barred owls or whatever.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the exception to that was if I was picking up a bald eagle or a great horned, and then I put on welders' gloves because they would slice right through the falconry gloves.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're just unbelievably strong and um and uh pretty comfortable being who they are.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of like that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us it came up more than once in your book where you had to bring in your feeders for sometimes extended periods.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And tell us about the emotions that you went through when you did that.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when you were pulling all that out from animals that may very well have come to rely on it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: The first time it happened, um, I had seen a what was um uh what I thought was a baby bird.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was actually a pine ciskin, and it was December.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, oh, he's so fluffy, you know, he's still got baby fat, so to speak, baby feathers.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he's so hungry, he must have flown in and tired and hungry.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I noticed the food was just dripping down his the sides, and I noticed the back end was really messy, and I realized it was a sick bird.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I started looking up what was going on, and there was an uh both an eruption, a huge, massive uh number of pine skis siskins around, but what there was also an outbreak of salmonellosis.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um this bird I realized was uh puffed out because it could no longer thermoregulate and it was going to die within probably a day.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I was so heartbroken.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the bird also flew to me, flew and and clung to me, and that's very abnormal behavior.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I the fact that this bird was going to die and I could do nothing about it just devastated me.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I cried and I took down the feeders, all the feeders, because I didn't want any other birds to get contaminated.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I'm never going to do this again.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is too heartbreaking.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to see the sick birds around me ever.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't put the feeders up for four months.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally I thought, well, maybe I will take a chance and try it again.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I did.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then there were a few more times and I took them down.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever I heard about an outbreak, I would take them down.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I saw a bird, say with conjunctivitis or, you know, some pox on its foot, I would take it down.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I discovered then when I took the feeders down that there were birds that were using the feeders I never knew about.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: They would be sitting on the windowsill and and looking through the window at me as I as I walked by.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if I just kept going, it would fly to the next window where I could see them.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it would be like a white-throated um sparrow, or it would be uh it would be um an orange-crowned warbler.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: I never knew I had that, or purple finch, or uh all these birds that were actually going to my diner.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And and there they were when the food wasn't available, they were complaining.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they'd follow me from window to window, and I remember the orange-crowned warbler actually tapped the window with the its beak and and looked at me.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't that kind of insistent tapping that birds do when it's the mating season, the course period when they're yeah, it wasn't that.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was under an Eve for one thing, so there wasn't a lot of reflection.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: But the fact that it was tapping and looking at me, then stopping, and then I would move and it would move to the next window, look at me, and tap again.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've had other birds do that, not just because they took the feeders down, but because the feeder was empty.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Their favorite feeder was empty.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: So they would, they're so smart who tap and get my attention.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And ah, yes, you know, there's the feeder.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the way I also knew that they associated me with the food is that when during that period, when I opened the door, as soon as I did, the bird would fly in.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: The bird that was tapping would immediately fly in and then freak.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um I what I learned with with that, with all of these encounters is how incredibly smart they are, and also how incredibly vulnerable they are to many different dangers in the environment.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you know, how how miraculous it is that so many of them do make it to adulthood in consideration of all the risks.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It it it it truly is amazing.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the smaller ones, the songbirds and the ones you've been mentioning, you know, their energy balance is so delicate that if they miss a day, that could be it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you mentioned thermal regulation, they might not be able to recover, make it through the night.
• 20:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's a you know, I love to sit and watch.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh you mentioned yard birds, we've got uh I've got 124 on our property.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's a little higher than normal because we're on a lake.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So probably 15 of those are cormorants and pelicans and sandpipers.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I love it.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just before you and I connected here, I was out on the front porch, it's 98 degrees, and I'm just watching the birds.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have a bird sanctuary in the front, and I just love watching the birds.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the oak tip mouse.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have those, but we have the tufted.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Tufted, yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the same personality.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're scolding and they're yelling, and they're stealing safflower seeds.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: When no one's so bossy.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But my goodness, they're entertaining to watch.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if I were to add my water birds, I look out on the bay, the harbor, the raccoon straits, Angel Island, and a couple of other islands.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And there are water uh birds, seabirds.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Waterbird, shorebirds that I can see, I don't count them because except for one that actually landed in my yard, and that was the great blue heron.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I would see more.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: I probably have 30 more if I if I actually could decide.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I count the ones that land on the beach or on the boat dock.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: The golds and all that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not in competition with anybody.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of cool.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I I only want to count that is the only list that I keep.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's my big yard birds.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only list.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is the bird that you haven't seen in your backyard that you would very much like to see in your backyard?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Poo-too.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: I would never get that bird in my yard, obviously.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't have any real r wish, you know, wanna wanna see birds.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm just so happy seeing the same birds every single day.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that sounds disingenuous, but I'm much more interested in seeing the behavior of birds and seeing what they're doing day by day and what they figure out and what their favorite food is for this period because it keeps changing, um, how they challenge each other.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, for example, we have a lot of juveniles and even fledglings at this late stage uh of summer.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm seeing fledglings, you know, little finches with their little feather horns sticking up and parents still feeding them.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so I could just watch that all day long.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have toys that are gonna probably have fledglings pretty soon, uh, that are both California towies and spotted towies.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're going back and forth to the feeder a lot and grabbing food with big chunks in their mouth and flying off.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so that is an indication to me that they're feeding nestlings, and the nestlings will become fledglings pretty soon.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't need new, I don't need new species to enjoy looking at the birds in the backyard.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: But it is a thrill.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: I never thought I would get a gray-throated, I mean a black-throated gray warbler.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um there have been a few surprises like that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: I did see what's a yellow-breasted, uh uh throated yellow-throated, yellow-throated warbler, which is was very unusual.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh and an American tree sparrow, which is just unheard of in this part of the country.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's surprising.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: But very surprising.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: But the moderator who questioned me about it, I sent him my drawings and I said, this is how I eliminated everything else.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And this happened in a matter of second.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I I said I had drawn a detailed portrait of an American tree sparrow when I was in New York, hoping to see them in Central Park.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: It turned out the moderator had actually seen an American tree sparrow just a few days before.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't know that I, you know, so he asked me, I said, well, mine came in a flock of golden-crowned sparrows, and I thought it was just at quick glance, I thought it was an immature um white-crowned sparrow.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and then it wasn't until I looked at it when it was this close to me through my window that I saw it was more gray in and it also had um a spot.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: It turned to me, and it had that signature spot on the clear breast.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew then that's what it was.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he saw the same thing in a in a horde of golden crowd sparrows and all of that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we we even said maybe it was the same bird.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Could have been.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Could have been right, plucked right from the world of the LBJs.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: The little brown jobs.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but that instance, that instance of both the moderator of eBird and I seeing the same bird made me wonder how many people have really amazingly rare birds in their yard and they don't even know it.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um a year before I wouldn't have noticed that bird.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: I would have just a bunch of birds, you know.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the fact that I knew.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: It takes an excellent birder and it takes a very self-confident birder because it's easy to take a bird and drop it into a slot that you're familiar with.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: You go, okay, there you go, I'm good to go.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've got a buddy of mine that that is uh uh he focuses on this county that we live in and he loves that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And in the winter, um, we will get like this year in November and December, we'll get between five and ten thousand goals that raft in front of the house.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he will come and sit on the dock with binoculars and scan every single one of them looking for the odd one that's in there.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I just I don't have that in me.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have that now.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: If he finds it, I'll run down and take a peek.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I don't I don't have that in me to see.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: To look at all hundred thousand birds.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I'll tell you about a great one that I saw, and maybe you've seen this before too.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: It are the Sandhill Cranes.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: And in Nebraska.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: You were on the Platte River.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was with Roe Sanctuary, yeah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was there about two weeks before you.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was also a guest of Bryce.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it was it was fantastic.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to back I'm going back again in March again, just right around that same period because we we just it was chock full.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they said it wasn't it?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: The most that particular week it was the most number of the Sandhill cranes they had they had seen for that period.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you got to watch the fog lift off the river and expose the cranes.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually lucky that I get to stay on the Platte River on a private island.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I see, without going to the blinds, I see them come down on the river in front of me.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: And they're very close.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I see lift off and also their descent onto the river.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, a really, really special place.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well I I stayed in the in the sanctuary's dorms um with Geor with George Archibald.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so you were over at um the um uh what is it called?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: The Crane Trust.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Crane Trust.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was there one day and then I was also there at Rose Sanctuary Audubon.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um and George, I did see George uh Archibald at Crane Trust and somewhere else, you know, we we we got together another time.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a fascinating man.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing work that they're doing with uh yeah.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah, that was uh that was a thrill.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I want do you have another bird book in your future?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh let me just say, never say never at this point.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not, I'm not planning on something.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: I continue to sketch the birds and make my notes about what I've seen.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a lot of drawings I've never used because I had 12 journals full of these drawings and I just had to pick a certain number of them.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so many of them never never even got used for the book.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And also the I had to stop uh with drawings up to December 20th 2022.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: And there were, of course, many drawings that occurred after that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I do have if I wanted, I I could do another book, but I I don't really have a I'm one of these people who doesn't want to do the same thing twice.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know, maybe that's foolish.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's but you have to write by what you're inspired to write about.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: So um Yeah, I have other things I want to write.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have um an interest that has taken you into your illustrations and stuff outside of birds?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like with the reptiles or unfit.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: It it was so much tied to nature journaling, which is it has so much to do with curiosity.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um I'm sorry, are you still there?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: I should just keep talking.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we cut out, we cut out for a second there.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um it has a lot to do with curiosity, paying attention, and asking questions.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is what is a large part of what I do with nature journaling.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's not to capture the best drawing of a bird.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's for me to notice something and then to say, why does this, why is this bird doing that?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I were to see a bird missing a foot, uh, I might draw that bird and say, oh, how sad, lost a foot.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I would dwell on that bird for hours thinking, how did it lose its foot?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: What are all the permutations of what happened there?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I would think about what's going to happen to this bird when migration starts.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, will it be able to survive that long flight?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the fact is, 75% of all birds don't make it to adulthood.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, what about this very young first winter golden-crowned sparrow?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: How is it going to make it back with only one leg?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I would just start, you know, and then I wanted to know from there, what is their habitat like in Alaska or northern Canada?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: I want to go there and see how these birds reclaim their nests or, you know, the new birds, how they find a place where they that's going to be their breeding site.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it just leads to endless questions.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's my thing, and not so much drawing uh other animals and getting better at doing that.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty obsessed on one thing.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I have a suggestion for you if you haven't done it.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um in March, when you're back on the plat, about 250 miles east of that, is a place called Les Bluffs in Missouri.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where the largest collection of snow geese gather at the same time as the Sand Hill Cranes.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was there this year, I did I did both of those in March.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and when I was there this year, there were well over one million snow geese on a single snow.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: That would be something to see.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, Amy.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think the reason why it's not just the sheer numbers and the spectacle in the sky.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's that you see some a phenomena like that, and you end up thinking, this is it reminds you of migration that took place in prehistoric times.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you just think this is like going back in time and seeing this when you see that many birds um, you know, in a situation where you'd never see in your life where you typically are.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it just conjures up so much, uh, at least in my imagination, it just conjures this.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it really does.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was out last night in South Carolina on a lake called Lake Murray.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of Lake Murray is a small island called Bomb Island.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I may have lost you again.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me just But in the middle of the lake is this place called Bomb Island, and it's called that because during World War II, uh James Doolittle and his and his merry band of bombers used it for practice.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um somewhere in the mid-1980s, purple martens decided to start stopping there on their migration route, and they now peak at over a half million purple martens on this tiny little island for about a month.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: What great birds, too.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it it really, they're they're terrible.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's about 90% of all purple martens migrate through the eastern seaboard, and not a single one of them builds their own nest.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Every single one of them uses human nests, uh, which is which it's kind of wild.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So all right, so I don't have your picture, but I have your voice.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I will take that.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I my producer Frank will throw some pictures up or whatever to cover this because no one wants to stare at me for two minutes.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but I was curious, I wanted to ask your opinion on anthropomorphism.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that that is a mistake for naturalists or conservationists to do that?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you think it is far more reasonable to imagine that we are not the only animal that has emotions up to and including empathy?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um I used to think it was a weakness to try and uh you know impose uh interpretations of animal behavior on the basis of an equivalent human behavior.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I know a number of field biologists, uh well, scientists in many different fields, evolutionary biologists and field biologists, ornithologists, and I found that many of them um have a position on anthropomorphism that is not entirely negative.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: So the feeling is that you can use that analog of human behavior based on what you're seeing, but then isolate features that have uh why you base that and then look for the particular traits that are animal-based.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, the nature of love or revenge or murder, you know, you that's something that Bernd Heinrich has written about in his books.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he's one of my favorite authors.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he's written about bird behavior.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that might have been in The Mind of the Raven or One Bird, Wild Bird at a Time, but he talks about this notion of love.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I I looked at, say, crows that were preening and crows that were working cooperatively, and I thought, gosh, you know, if if Lou, my husband, were to pick knits out of my hair and eat them, devotedly doing that, isn't that kind of like love?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um that kind of attention and care.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or maybe he would just be doing it so he'd have some extra protein.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's possibility too.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Men are men are pretty simple.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, you have that ramp going down into your lake.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do you ever see birds uh just sliding down that ramp, you know, in a in a fun way?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, birds have fun.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And what is the thrill they have?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I started thinking, well, a lot of our fun as humans is to do some kind of physical feat that involves strength or skill or a little bit of terror.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: And when we do it, it's fun.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and their notion of fun, I think, is, or their their sense of fun also relates to doing gymnastics and special flight patterns and balancing on a windy day on a little skinny tree branch and all of that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I I see that now as a way to ask the questions about what this behavior is about, not to impose, however, without without knowing uh the bird that deeply, um, that that is the interpretation.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think we always have to be careful about the intention of what a bird does or any animal what it does.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: We are not in the same position of trying to fight for survival.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so much of what they do has so much to do with their chances of survival um, or their chances of finding a mate, their chances of uh finding habitat, um, issues that we don't really confront uh in the same way.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So their behavior is going to be the reasons I think are gonna be different.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's I agree with you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: I also think, and I I could certainly be wrong, this is my little theory, but you know, in recent decades, uh far more women have moved into the science area um in roles other than getting coffee and typing notes.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it is my belief that in general, not every every time, but in general, women bring more empathy to the world than men do.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that some of that is starting to spread a little bit through the nature and conservation world.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm not sure.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that might very well be a good thing.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um at least let's look at with an open mind and say, you know, what what what is that happening?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and to your point, I understand, especially these smaller birds, you know, they're trying to survive day by day, if not hour by hour.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that brings a whole different level of of concern and motivation and and decision making.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yet still, maybe there's something.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, I'm gonna throw my email up.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's Scott at naturaliscott.com.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: If you got any questions for me, please, please send me a note and ask me.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love to answer those questions.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to share a quote that uh was in your book, Amy, back in October of 19.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: You said, I am still new to birding, so every bird is good to see, even the ones I see all the time.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you have certainly validated that quote in the course of our conversation.
• 40:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I do.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: I never tire of seeing the same birds.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have, I don't understand the notion of, oh, that's a junk bird, a trash bird, uh, that a lot of people will say about things like house sparrows or pigeons or uh other birds that they see commonly.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think of any any of those birds being any less worthy of our respect.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um pigeons are incredibly smart, for example.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um house sparrows, people hate them, would like to kill them because they're invasive, but you know, if they were not invasive, they were not so common, um, they'd probably really value them a lot more.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: And in England, for example, I think they have lost 85% of their their uh house sparrows, what they call, um, what do they call them their uh um I forget, but I'll English English sparrows or something.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um but they have lost them.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they originated, and they have lost 85 to 95 percent of them, and there's a you know, a great concern.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so to them, suddenly house sparrows, English sparrows, are they very fond of them.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: They want to protect them.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um so these things are all our are I think that our opinions, our feelings for birds, um often have to do with assumptions of how we value anything in life.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: If it's too common, we don't want it, if it's really rare, that's what we go for.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not the way that I see birds.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I see um interesting aspects to to all of them, to any of them.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm in agreement with you.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in the book I wrote about my Raptor Big Year, um, I did write an essay in there called Just a Bird.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I don't believe in it's just a sparrow or it's just a goal or whatever.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we share that belief.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you're watching us on YouTube, do me a favor and hit subscribe.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Every time you do, this gets pushed out to more people, uh, which is great, so more people can hear what Amy has to say.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we keep it ad-free.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's it's just a hobby and it's just for fun.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh drop a comment or click like, whatever you want to do.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and at the end of every show, Amy, I I do the same thing, which is I encourage people to get outside, whether it's their front porch, their backyard, their local park, or a national park, whatever it might be.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do, please be sure to stay safe and stay curious.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Amy, thank you so much for being a part of this.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have really enjoyed the conversation.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Great, great.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to hearing your other podcasts.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I will send you a link and you can take a peek at them.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: You'll know a lot of the people that are on them.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm Scott Harris, this is Naturally Scott.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Amy Tan has been our brilliant and charming guest, and um, I will look forward to hearing what you think about this.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Take care and have a terrific day.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Naturally Scott with Scott Harris.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, directed and edited by Frank Sierra.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at naturally Scott Harris.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott thanks you for viewing and listening to this podcast.