The Backyard Bird Chronicles / Amy Tan

 

4 out of 5 stars 

My best friend and birding buddy brought this book to my attention. She has rarely steered me astray and this book was no exception. It is exactly what it says on the tin: chronicles of Amy Tan's backyard birds. It is the nature journal of a very obsessed woman.

I admire people who keep nature journals. I have intermittently kept a personal journal but have had only a couple of abortive attempts at a birding journal. I just didn't have enough bandwidth for anything like what Ms. Tan has produced. My attempts ended up being mere lists of birds seen on a particular day or trip. Tan, being a professional writer, produces a vastly superior product.

I envy Tan's talent for drawing her backyard birds, as well as the backyard that supports her endeavors. California has much different birds and climate than Calgary. Her illustrations are beautiful and she tells us that drawing birds made sure that she really noticed their details. It was a pleasure to see her progress from the beginner state to more experienced birder. We are none of us born knowing these things, so we are familiar with the learning process. Most birders think fondly of those early years and the excitement of each new bird, what Tan calls New Bird Tachycardia.

I was dismayed by her tale of being talked down to by someone that she refers to as a Poobah. We've all run across one—someone who has forgotten what it's like to be an enthusiastic neophyte or who is insecure and needs to feel superior to others. Tan seems to shrug this off and continues her joyous bird studies. There are probably more poobahs out there who would critique her for anthropomorphism and/or for bird feeding (I've observed both). Tan is aware of her tendency to think up stories about the birds' lives, but I found her concern for them to be charming. (She says a couple of times that she's glad she's not a scientist.) She also is finicky about the cleanliness of her feeders and bird baths. If she sees a sick bird, she takes down all the feeders for cleaning until it's safe to reopen the restaurant. She admits to spending extravagantly on feed, especially mealworms. It sounds to me like she is hurting no birds and derives a great deal of pleasure from her hobby. Having spent a fair amount of cash on sunflower seeds myself, I would never criticize.

In short, Ms. Tan makes me wish for a yard where I could study my own local birds in depth every day. It has allowed her to get a feel for behaviour and for the rhythm of the seasons of which I am quite jealous. It is a beautiful book, which I recommend to those who also love their yard birds and/or journaling about their observations.

A Dance of Cranes / Steve Burrows

4 out of 5 stars

A trail of murder leads Domenic Jejeune across a vast continent.

Newly estranged from his girlfriend, Inspector Domenic Jejeune returns to Canada, where he soon receives news that his brother has gone missing in Wood Buffalo National Park while conducting field research on Whooping Cranes. Jejeune immediately heads out West to try to find him. 

Meanwhile, back in the U.K., Jejeune’s plan to protect his ex-girlfriend from a dangerous adversary has failed, and she has also gone missing. In Jejeune’s absence, it falls to his trusty sergeant, Danny Maik, to track her down. But there is far more to the situation than either of them anticipated. And time is running out for all of them.


Well, this book was a treat--I had a volunteer job long ago where I exercised Whooping Crane chicks, which were subsequently released to the wild in Florida. I spent many hours doing what I came to call my walking meditation, wearing a baggy white costume which covered my head and interacting with the chicks using a hand puppet. Left to their own devices, the chicks would linger by the food bowl and grow so fast that their long toes would curl. My job was to convince them to go walking with me, wearing off some calories and keeping their limbs and toes nice & straight. It could often be hot, boring work, but I considered it my personal National Geographic moment and thoroughly enjoyed my time there.

I have also visited Wood Buffalo National Park, where Domenic Jejune ends up in this installment of the birder murder mysteries. My time was spent merely on the safe periphery, rather than out in the muskeg, where Jejune seeks his brother, but it is a large, lonely land and the bugs are out of this world! Between mosquitoes and black flies, my friend and I came to regret that we were camping!

I enjoyed the book very much, despite the pattern that seems to be developing of Inspector Jejune nearly dying in each story. His investigations take him into wilderness and the associated risks of those locations can support this plot device to some extent, but I hope there aren’t any near-death experiences in the next book. 

That is, I’m assuming there will be a next book, as Mr. Burrows seems to have left us with enough unanswered questions about the general story arc to require another volume!

A Shimmer of Hummingbirds / Steve Burrows

4 out of 5 stars

Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune is hoping an overseas birding trip might hold some answers in his fugitive brother’s manslaughter case. But there are people on the tour who seem keen to keep their secrets, and the rainforest can be a dangerous place for those who ask too many questions. 

Back in the U.K., in Jejeune’s absence, Marvin Laraby, his former boss and longtime nemesis has been brought in to investigate the murder of an accountant. He is proving so effective that Superintendent Colleen Shepherd is considering making his replacement of Jejeune a permanent arrangement. 

With the manslaughter case poised to claim another victim, Jejeune learns that an accident back home involving his girlfriend, Lindy Hey, is much more than it seems. Lindy is in imminent danger. And only Jejeune can help her. But to do so, he must sacrifice his working relationship with Shepherd, opening the door for Laraby’s appointment as Saltmarsh’s new DCI. 

When Jejeune discovers the truth about Laraby’s current case, he is faced with a dilemma. He can speak up, knowing it will cost him his job on the north Norfolk coast he loves. Or he can stay silent, and let a killer escape justice. 

As he weighs his alternatives, Domenic Jejeune begins to realize that, sometimes, the wrong choice is the only choice you have.

The best part of these multi-volume mystery series? One mystery is solved during the course of the book, but the overarching storyline develops more slowly. Burrows doesn’t rush things and he assumes that the reader will be able to fill in the blanks without too much coaching. He gives enough details so that if the reader, like me, has been away from the main characters for a while we can fit them into their places quite easily. But he doesn’t do like some of the cozy mystery authors, who repeat their characters’ life details far too often and in too much detail.

Being a birder myself, I could see the lure of Columbia as a destination, a good cover for what we know Domenic is really up to. As in real life, many other people can also see through his smoke screen--and unlike me, they don’t understand the lure of the bird.

Burrows leaves us with a tiny bit of a cliff hanger in this volume….I’ll be headed on to the next installment soon.

Birding Without Borders / Noah Strycker

4 out of 5 stars

In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species—by far the biggest birding year on record.

This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us—and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

I enjoyed this memoir much more than I anticipated. Late last year, I read this author’s Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica, which I enjoyed because I am a penguin fanatic. I have done a fair bit of travel in the pursuit of birds, so I picked up this volume with both hope and reservations.

I needn’t have worried. Strycker is a much better writer than many of the folks who pen birding memoirs and I enjoyed seeing places, people and birds that I know through his eyes. I think that was part of the enjoyment for me—getting to revisit some places, remember some birds and say, “Oh, I met that person!”

For those of you who aren’t obsessed with birds, a big year is a year devoted to seeing as many birds as possible in a certain area. There’s a certain competitiveness inherent in the practice which you can read about in The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession (or try the movie of the same name, which I enjoyed). As I read TBY, I found myself snorting occasionally as I identified with many of the behaviours described. Strycker takes the Big Year concept a step further as he decides to take his Year global and try to see half of the bird species on Earth (5000 of an approximate 10,000). While having no desire to participate in such an activity myself, it was intriguing to see how Strycker proceeded with the endeavour.

What I appreciated the most about this account wasn’t the list of birds. Obviously birds figure prominently in the account, but it was the connections with people, the difficulties faced during travel, and the time spent putting things into perspective—those made the tale worthwhile in my opinion. There was self-reflection here, plus no over-the-top environmental preachiness.

I’m unsure how interesting non-birders would find such a book—if any of my non-birding friends choose to read it, perhaps you could let me know?

A Cast of Falcons / Steve Burrows

4 out of 5 stars

The threat from above is an ever-present danger.  A man falls to his death from a high cliff face in northern Scotland. From a distance, another man watches. He approaches the body, tucks a book into the man’s pocket, and leaves.  When the Scottish police show Inspector Domenic Jejeune the book, a bird guide bearing his name, he can truthfully say he that he has no idea how it came to be in the dead man’s pocket. What he does not tell them is that he recognizes the book instantly. So, while puzzled, he is not entirely surprised when his brother Damian emerges from his fugitive existence to reveal that the dead man is a notorious “taker” — a poacher of live wild falcons.

The case gets personal in a way Jejeune has never experienced before. He is acutely aware that with each passing day, rare birds are being illegally taken from the wild. And hovering over his every move is the threat that if he gets this one wrong, no one in the North Norfolk Constabulary will escape the wrath of the nation’s highest-placed officials.

If you are a birder and you like murder mysteries, you are already predisposed to like the Birder Murder Mysteries by Steve Burrows. This third installment of the series returns the reader to the Norfolk area of England, to see what Inspector Domenic Jejeune is involved in now—obviously from the title, falcons feature as an important part of the action.

Developments include Jejeune’s relationships with his partner Lindy, his sergeant Danny Maik, and his superior officer Colleen Shepard, among others. Plus we finally get a peek into the family backstory that has been alluded to in the previous two books.

Burrows uses his life experience as a birder and as a Brit transplanted to Canada to craft an engaging main character (Jejeune is a Canadian ex-pat in Norfolk).

The plot gets a bit messier, just like real life, and the entanglements get more difficult to sort out. Justice proves a little more difficult to achieve. A satisfying story—but I can see the possibilities for the next book A Shimmer of Hummingbirds, which I will be on the look-out for next year.

A Pitying of Doves / Steve Burrows

4 out of 5 stars

With murder, everyone pays a price ... Why would a killer ignore expensive jewellery and take a pair of turtledoves as the only bounty? This is only one of the questions that piques Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune s interest after a senior attache with the Mexican Consulate is found murdered alongside the director of a local bird sanctuary. The fact that the director s death has opened up a full-time research position studying birds hasn t eluded Jejeune either. Could this be the escape from policing that the celebrated detective has been seeking? Even if it is, Jejeune knows he owes it to the victims to solve the case first. But a trail that weaves from embittered aviary owners to suspicious bird sculptors only seems to be leading him farther from the truth. Meanwhile, Jejeune is discovering that diplomatic co-operation and diplomatic pressure go hand in hand. With two careers hanging in the balance, the stakes have never been higher for Inspector Jejeune. And this time, even bringing a killer to justice may not provide the closure he s looking for.

Second book in the birder murder mystery series and I have enjoyed both of them a great deal.  This second installment feels more solid, now that the stage is set and the main characters have been introduced.  I like the main character, Domenic Jejeune, despite the fact that he is difficult to get to know, maybe even because he is elusive.

This is another muddy mystery, quite literally as a van has to be hauled out of a marsh.  The landscape of Norfolk is very much a character in these books and I’m glad that I have visited there and can picture some of the locations quite clearly.  (This could also be an excuse to go back, of course, and reacquaint myself with this lovely birdy part of the world, for as Jejeune notes, birders do like to retrace their steps).  Of course the case hinges on the doves of the title—but in an intelligent way, not just a kitschy way.  Burrows delves into real conservation issues to provide the clues for his detective.  I was fooled for a little while, thinking thoughts about Passenger Pigeons and cloning, a red
herring which I am pretty sure Burrows intended.  If he didn’t, it worked anyway!

I don’t think there’s a birder out there who hasn’t wondered at some point whether s/he could turn the hobby into a source of income.  We all flirt with the idea of how wonderful it would be to escape our current employment treadmill to spend every day in the field.  Jejeune may be a fabulous detective who can’t shut his mind off just because his superior asks him to, but he longs for a change in vocation.  Obviously, since there is a third book, he hasn’t found an escape just yet!  That is also typical—field work doesn’t pay very well and being a tour leader has its own kind of drudgery.

Secondary characters are asserting themselves a bit more this time around, and Jejeune’s relationship with Lindy assumes greater importance.  Is she going to be able to stick with this quiet, obsessed man for the long haul?  (Any of us who have dated birder men frequently ask ourselves the same question).

A solid second book, recommended for those who enjoy both mysteries and birding.

A Siege of Bitterns / Steve Burrows

4 out of 5 stars

A charming first book from a man who is a dedicated birder himself. A Brit living in Canada, his main character is a Canadian living in the U.K. And not just anywhere in the U.K., in Norfolk, an area well known for its birding opportunities. He writes convincingly about the expat experience.

My very first international birding trip in 1999 led this Canadian birder to that very area—I have wonderful memories of birding at Cley & Titchwell and learning about British birds from our knowledgeable leader. Indeed, we six Canadian women on the tour had no idea how much it would affect our lives. Five of us have stayed fast friends ever since, continuing to travel together to many far flung places as well as in our own home area. One of the original six has passed away, another has severe dementia, a third is well into her 80s and not really getting out much anymore, but the remaining three are still plotting and planning the next travel.

I personally belong to the group of birders who are actually interested in the birds as creatures in their own right—how they live, what they are doing, their behaviours, etc. If I can watch an individual for a length of time, that is most enjoyable. I keep a list, but I am far from fanatical about it—the listing is the least enjoyable part of the hobby for me. I also try to avoid people who restrict their interests only to biriding—I prefer people with varied interests, with people skills, and more conversational flexibility. As a result, I now make it a priority to try to find birding field trip leaders who have a little more going on in their lives than just birds. The more well-rounded human beings are just more pleasant to travel with, talk with, and observe birds with.

That worldview is studied in A Siege of Bitterns; the sad states of the lives of the men who are totally consumed with birding (or with business) to the exclusion of all else. The mystery itself is as muddy as the marsh where it takes place. In fact, I would say that for me, it was the birding aspect that charmed me about this novel, rather than the mystery. Recommended for birders with well-rounded lives who enjoy reading.