Jay

[pcb]

I just saw a Jay.

Not a Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata),but Garrulus glandarius – a name that sounds more interesting than it is, as it translates, I'm told, to the Acorn Warbler. That could be wrong, but the little buggers are known to have a thing for acorns and are blamed for the spread of oak trees after the last ice age, IIRC, so it's understandable – they like caching acorns, but don't always come back. Mind, there are other feathered maniacs and squirrels (who aren't feathered, but who are maniacs in their own right) who do the same thing with hazelnuts, if the FiL's lawn is anything to go by, so who am I to point fingers?

Anyway. This is the second time in my life I have knowingly seen one – the last one was flapping around in the quickthorn and crab apple in the back garden; this time, a couple of years later, it was passing between the bin and the cherry tree in the front garden. 

Jay's are not rare, but unusual outside of woodlands. We don't live in a woodland, so it was lost or stealing fruit, same as most of the other birds in the front garden right now.

Last time, the Panda was... not unbelieving, but doubtful. This time I had an image up on my phone and comparing the live creature to the reference; why didn't I take a picture? Last time, the thing took fright because I walked into the garden, this time there was no point because there wasn't a decent direct line of sight and I wanted my own visual proof and memory rather than a blur on a screen through a window blocked by plants.
But.
I saw a Jay. It was cool.

Comments

[filialucis]

Jays are cool to look at. I see them in the garden sometimes and they used to come to the feeders in winter sometimes when they were still such that larger birds could land on them. (I had to change them because the squirrels found out they were there and started stealing all the bird food.)

But in all honesty, I'd rather not see them. A few years ago I heard a terrible commotion outside the office window and saw a pair of smaller songbirds chasing a jay that turned out to have stolen one of their chicks from the nest. The poor parent birds were scurrying desperately down the driveway after the predator and their baby, but there was nothing they could do and the jay calmly retired with its prey to a branch of the spruce tree just outside the west window of the office.

On that warm summer day, suddenly it looked as though snowflakes were falling. It was the baby bird's down, which the jay was stripping off its dinner. I've never felt the same way about jays since.

[claidheamhmor]

Oh nice! Are they garrulous?

[pcb]

It didn't say 😆