August 15: Deceit

We don't think of Blue Jays as mimics, but they can imitate other birds, especially hawks, surprisingly well. The ones in our yard pretend they are Broad-winged Hawks, Ospreys, and Red-shouldered Hawks on a regular basis. You have to pause and listen carefully to be sure about what you're hearing.

 

Fog hides the mountain.

Unseen hawk's piercing call

or is it a blue jay?

Posted with Blogsy

March 13: Storm Watch

Big storm tomorrow.

Jays have robbed the feeders

of all the peanuts.

Posted with Blogsy

September 21: Blue

Shallow pond: Blue Jay bathing

near a branch full of

small blue damselflies.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

November 10: Blue Monday

Most people aren't thrilled when Blue Jays dominate their bird feeders.

I wasn't expecting
my office visitor
to defend Blue Jays.

October 21: Rain ahead

As predicted, it rains--
jays mob the feeders,
river sighs, opens wide.

October 9: Urgency

Squadron of jays
bombards the feeders all day.
Waiting for that call.

July 2: Blue Jay crisis

Blue Jays built a nest on our front porch and hatched out one nestling, now half-grown. Unfortunately today it prematurely bailed out of the nest, and then did it again and again each time Paul replaced it. We can't tell if it hurt itself in the fall or is just weak because its parents are too busy dive-bombing everything in the yard to look after it. But after consulting Avian Haven, the bird rehabilitation place in Freedom, Paul put it in a basket with some soft rags and hung it up by the nest in hopes that the parents will resume tending to it. We have been trying not to care too much, because you just can't get attached to a baby bird, but the vulnerable little thing did hatch on our porch...

This won't end well--
I wish the struggling jay
hadn't clung to my finger.

July 3 update: The baby jay, in rough shape but still alive this morning, was transferred to Avian Haven.

May 29: Nest

I was wrong in my May 26 post. The Blue Jays really did build a nest over our front door while we were away, and now she's up there brooding on eggs! I think of the classic haiku poet Issa, his compassion toward the spiders and other creatures that lived with him...

Please use the back door.

Mother jay is sitting tight

on three eggs out front.

Posted with Blogsy

May 26: Home again

Relieved that the jays

abandoned their nest-building

over our front door.

Posted with Blogsy

July 25: Cacophony

Right now I can hear out my window, all at the same time, and loud:
2 cawing crows, one of them whiny, probably a younger bird
1 Blue Jay
1 Red-eyed Vireo, non-stop all day
1 Song Sparrow
1 cardinal

Beats the lawnmower,
this birdsong circus under
treetops' lush green tent.

May 29: Rain again

After a brief respite from rain and drizzle, wet weather returns. I didn't have the heart to stop the jay from stealing peanuts from the bird feeder this afternoon, it looked so wet and miserable. A bit like my state of mind. The grey squirrel, however, still had to go.

Bedraggled blue jay,

I won't shoo you from my feeder

this time.

January 4: Red-bellied Woodpecker

This morning when I got to work, the trees were birdy. A small flock of juncos flitted and twittered near my car, the usual feeder birds were queuing up in the bushes, one nuthatch spiraled head-first down a birch trunk, and a pair of jays watched with bright eyes. From inside my office I watched with binoculars, hoping to see something interesting turn up--more redpolls, perhaps, or an errant sparrow.

As I stood there in the center of the room, one of the jays landed in a feeder. Usually I shoo them off because they're too big for the feeders, and they eat too much. But I hadn't seen a jay here for awhile, so decided to let it eat in peace. Their blue plumage (which isn't really blue, but that's another story) looks so pretty in contrast with the white snow.

Soon the second jay passed overhead, moving from a nearby tree to the edge of the roof over my feeders. But instead of another jay at a feeder, a Red-Bellied Woodpecker suddenly appeared.

Red-bellied Woodpecker (male).
Photo by Ken Thomas via Wikimedia Commons.

He stayed eating bird seed not only long enough for me to yell to my co-workers to come see but also for them to actually watch him for a few seconds. Then he flew off into the trees, moving upriver. He didn't return, but it's good to know there's still one in the neighborhood. This southern species has made an amazing incursion into Maine in the past eight to ten years or so. Before that, to see one here at all was unusual. Now they're hanging out through the winter, popping up in my own yard, their chirring call becoming so familiar that a couple nights ago I dreamed I heard one.

Should I expect all my dreams
to become as real
as this visiting woodpecker?

June 10: Awareness

Our cat has been especially restless today. I don't know if it's the warm weather, the sunny, open windows (she's an indoor cat, so sitting on the sill is as close as she gets to being outside), or the birds and insects that keep buzzing past the windows and glass door. Rather than curling up on her pillow for hours at a time--her usual habit, despite being a young cat--she's been wandering from window to window, or sitting in one spot that gives her a view of the bird feeders, alert to any and every motion outside. Just now, up on my desk, she's spasmodically following the path of a bumblebee on the other side of the screen. Her ears perk up at the sound of a crow whining down by the river. Seems this clear, sunny weather and the movement of air through the house has brought new sights and smells into her world, made her more aware of what's outside.

This morning I finished a great new book about how to start developing a deeper awareness of the world outside: What the Robin Knows by Jon Young (I include a link to the book so you can learn more about it, not to encourage you to purchase it from Amazon. I hope that if the book interests you, you'll get it at your local, independent bookstore.) Young's premise, put very broadly and simply, is that by developing an intense familiarity with the creatures that inhabit our world, especially species like robins that can give us learnable cues about what's happening around us, we can better understand the natural world and how we can become a less intrusive presence within it. The key is developing one's awareness through intimate, repeated observations. 

The book made me realize how much I have to work on in this regard, yet also that I've been following some of its tenets already. The other day, for example, I heard jays and crows making a racket out back that I was certain indicated a strange cat was passing through. I looked out the window and sure enough, there it was--an orange-and-white cat I'd never seen before, scuttling down the riverbank on the "cat trail" that the neighborhood cats all follow through our yard (usually without the corvid fanfare). Apparently I'd been unconsciously absorbing a little bit of bird language just by paying attention to my back yard.

This very afternoon, I heard the chip of a woodpecker in the willow over the driveway. Before I heard its complete call a few seconds later, I knew this was the local downy woodpecker that likes to hang out in that tree on his way to another tree in our back yard. So, I've gotten a little bit of a start on Young's teachings all on my own, but his book has opened my eyes to how much I haven't been paying attention to, focused as I usually am on seeing and hearing all the birds I can when out on the trail. His point is that it's not just a matter of knowing the names and songs of birds and what habitat they each live in, but of learning so much about them that when the robin in your yard makes a particular alarm call, you know to look up for the sharp-shinned hawk flying overhead. And, like learning a language spoken in more than one country, this knowledge then travels with you, enhancing your awareness of the natural world wherever you are and enabling you to interpret the behavior of the "robins" everywhere.

I recognize my

neighbors--robins, crows, sparrow--

but do I know them?

November 16: Peeping Jay

This morning before work I was at my desk when a shadow crossed the window. I looked up to see a blue jay perched on the gutter right outside, seeming to look in at me with those bright eyes as if making sure I was being productive. I could see other jays moving through the trees beyond--the neighborhood flock was clearly on morning patrol.

Humans seem predisposed to ascribe meaning to such experiences. For most of us, a close encounter with any form of wildlife is a notable moment these days, almost a visitation. And that's how I felt today, even though I see those jays all the time. One jay paused and appeared to notice me, to check up on me. I felt singled out. Lucky.

Blue jay checks me out,
leaves. To her I am nothing.
But she marks my day.

July 8: Blue Jay Feather

Wandering through my back yard this afternoon, I came upon a blue jay feather in the grass, bright blue with black barring, a pretty thing. A family of blue jays lives nearby--I often see one perched on a particular branch over the back yard, and even more often, hear them. To find one of their feathers, so neat and intact, seems like a gift. Perhaps it was given in exchange for the ripe cherry tomatoes I've been lining up for the jays on a stump under their favorite tree.

The blue of a blue jay's feather is not a result of pigment, as with many colored feathers. Rather, it's caused by the way light refracts through the barbs of the feather. If you flip over a jay feather or hold it up to the light, it looks dark grey. So the blue, which so defines this brash, beautiful bird, is in a sense a mirage.

Blue sky, blue feather--
a gift given or molted?
Flight path souvenir.

July 12: Blue Jays and Blueberries

This afternoon I was still working in my office when our director left for home. We had the door open so the faint breeze could help dissipate the heat in our non-air-conditioned space, and I could hear him talking to someone outside. It sounded like he was telling them to go away. Curious, I went to the doorway. I expected to see a stray dog, but he was apparently alone, so I asked him whom he had been talking to. "The blue jays," he said. "They're eating our blueberries!" He then proceeded to bang some things together to scare them further off across the parking lot.

I realized then that I had been hearing the racket of blue jays outside for a good part of the afternoon without being consciously aware of what I was hearing. The jays are regular visitors, and this time of year they're always kvetching and caviling around the office in their family groups. I'd grown used to them, I guess, and had blocked the noise while I was working. They were especially excited this afternoon because they'd found an edible treasure trove--the high bush blueberries right outside our office doorway were finally ripening.

Actually, I don't think today was the first day they had discovered the berries. I think they've had their beady black eyes on them all along, just waiting for the peak moment to raid the blueberry patch. Today was the day. Thanks to the commotion, now we knew, too. After they flew off, a co-worker and I went out and picked a bowlful, missing enough berries, I'm sure, to keep the jays happy. After we went back inside, not a minute passed before I heard a jay back in the dogwood next to the berry bushes. These birds are not stupid. They keep an eye on everything.

Blue skies in July,
blue jays in the blueberries--
all as it should be.

May 14: Primary Colors

This morning I led a bird walk at the Ducktrap River Preserve. The birds were relatively quiet, which is understandable given how chilly it was--I wore my fleece gloves almost the entire time. A highlight for everyone was a pair of scarlet tanagers. We heard the male's husky, robin-like warbler off in the forest and crossed our fingers that he'd cross our path. The bird gods heard us, and eventually the bird flew close enough so everyone could enjoy good looks at his brilliant red coloring. He posed and sang. But we soon realized he wasn't putting on a show for us. Teed up on a tall pine nearby was a lemony-green female tanager. For a while the two birds perched together, giving us a field guide view of the plumage differences between genders: bright red male, bright yellow-green female. Probably a mated pair at that. As we admired them, a blue jay flew into a nearby tree, rounding out the color wheel and thoroughly brightening an overcast morning.

Red bird, yellow bird,
blue jay: primary colors
on forest's palette.

April 16: Not a Broad-Wing

This morning as I was leaving for work, I heard a broad-winged hawk calling. It's a distinctive call, a piercing, high-pitched whistle. (You can hear it here, though if you don't click away from the web page, the song repeats indefinitely. If you have dogs near, it will probably drive them--and you--crazy.) It called repeatedly (somewhat like the link I just posted) but rather faintly for a hawk that also sounded like it was in my back yard. I looked up and didn't see anything soaring overhead. They've been migrating through in high numbers this week, according to the Bradbury Mountain hawk watch, and I was looking forward to seeing my first one of the year. Often in summers past I've heard the call and stepped out into the yard to see a broad-wing or two circling in the sky above Mount Battie. I know of at least one pair that has nested in the area. But the sky was empty today as far as I could see. Then I realized: I was being duped by a blue jay.

And not for the first time. I've heard blue jays imitate broad-winged hawks, red-tailed hawks, and ospreys. I've also recently heard a blue jay respond to the "beep-beep" of my car door opener, both in my own driveway and elsewhere, with a perfect-pitch imitation. It wasn't just a fluke either; it beeped back in the same way each time I opened the doors. I'm not sure what the evolutionary advantage is to being such a successful mimic, but given that the blue jay's specialty seems to be raptors, perhaps it's to mess with other birds, to scare them off their eggs or otherwise distract them for some nefarious purpose of its own. Or perhaps it just enjoys playing with sounds. Jays are generally very verbal birds, and tricky. This one certainly played on my expectations this morning, as if it knew just what I was hoping to see and decided to taunt me.

No broad-wing, just jays--
spring's teasing reminder of
what's not yet returned.

November 3: Blue Jay

The haiku master Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) often wrote humorous observations of the animal life around him, like these gems, translated by Robert Hass:

The bedbugs
scatter as I clean,
parents and children.

The mountain cuckoo--
a fine voice,
and proud of it!

(From The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa, edited by Robert Hass)

In that same vein, I offer up today's haiku, with a short back story: I've stuck a small bird feeder filled with black sunflower seed on the window in front of my office desk. I'm often entertained and pleasantly distracted throughout the work day by the various birds who visit. Regular drop-ins include tufted titmice, chickadees, goldfinches, a white-breasted nuthatch or two, the occasional song sparrow, and, if I'm lucky, a cardinal or rose-breasted grosbeak. Lately, however, the blue jays have figured out how to balance on the tiny feeder to get their share of seed. The cheeky birds look in at me with beady black eyes that shine with sly intelligence. At first I shooed them off, but now I stop what I'm doing to admire them--their color, cleverness, and audacity. They're smart and they get what they want. And as I carry out my work, there are probably lessons I could be learning by following their example, if I could dare to be so brash.

Big greedy blue jay,
you can barely fit yourself
in my bird feeder.