(Published July 4, 2009)
Summer finally arrived yesterday along the Cloquet River in northeastern Minnesota. I rose early to greet the clear, azure sky, to sip a cup of hot coffee with my wife under an umbrella shading our picnic table on the back patio, and to study the birds. This is the first year since we built our new house nine years ago that my wife and I have put out what I’ll call “serious” bird feed. And our avian neighbors have responded with dances of color, feats of feathery daring-a-do and birdsong galore. The only drawbacks? Crows and blue jays, relatives, I’ve learned, whose manners are suspect.
When the crows descend with the first morning light peaking over the eastern treeline, the other birds, the colorful, soulful, beauteous song birds disappear. The black demons strut around the base of our bird feeders like so many street corner bullies, announcing their presence in ugly croaks, thrusting out their collective chests and daring all comers. Thankfully, a clap of hands sends them scurrying for the forest; perhaps a reaction to being shot at one too many times during grouse season.
Into the crowless void, the smaller jays descend. Understand, I love their color and their chattering language when I see blue jays in the wild. But here, in the backyard? How can I say this politely…Blue jays are finicky, picky eaters who delight in scrounging through the feeders with frantic desire, searching through mixed seeds, berries and dried fruits for only those morsels that meet their high expectations. Their finicky appetites mean that perfectly good feed gets thrown carelessly from the feeders onto the patio, the deck, the picnic table. And of course, being smaller cousins of the crow, the jays’ behavior intimidates smaller song birds into reticence. We watch as goldfinches flit in and out of the becalmed summer air, searching for an opening, a chance to feed. Cedar waxwings and rose-tinted pine grosbeaks await their turn; patient in their confidence that eventually the jays will have eaten their fill. But such steadfast belief in jay benevolence is misplaced. It is only after I shout at the brazen intruders in blue, sending them off to wherever it is that blue jays fly for respite, that the smaller birds realize an opening and come in to feed.
Have a great summer now that it’s finally here. And don’t forget to stop in and say hello next weekend at the Phelps Mill Festival in Fergus Falls.
Peace.
Mark
