Amy Tan's book

Drawing the birds you see, is different from photographing them. Here is a book of drawings of hundreds of birds in the author's, Amy Tan, backyard in California.

Listening to the voices of the birds is another way to get to know them. When I was a child, around ten years, or a little over, I became interested - how? I can't remember - in the voices of birds. There was a thick forest on one side of our cottage where we stayed long three month holidays with birdsong both during the day and night. There were fields on the other side with lark song high up in the sky. There was the sea side shore and uninhabited islands with gulls and wading birds with their cries. The book was Lintujen äänet 1922 by Jussi Seppä (1885-1951) with illustrations and wordings and notations of over 150 species's songs. There have been numerous editions up to 1950's.

A small book illustrated by drawings and word imitations of bird songs had just come out. Together with my mother we listened to the birds both early in the morning and late at night on the steps of the cottage, or at the water shore.

In those days in the late forties (1940's) the woods and the country houses and the sea shore were quiet. No light pollution, no cars (in the islands), no motor boats. Just the sound of the wind or the water wavelet.

Today I have at my feeder great tits and blue tits, tree sparrows, blackbirds, woodpeckers and jackdaws. Through the WWF nest camera I can follow the nesting of an Osprey couple.

The huge wings and the vast distances the Osprey fly when migrating have stunned me and have made me interested in the  w i n g s   and   f l y i n g   of birds. The various shapes of the wings and the innumerable ways the birds use them leave one speechless.

Now I have a book where the author tells and draws stories of birds in her own backyard over a decennial, since 2016 or earlier up to this day.