This Beltane, the lesson for me was: Never underestimate the power of a small blue bird. The very last storm of the colder season here in the valley was a windy one. Little did we know the havoc it brought about in the lives of a family of jays that frequented our yard. The day after the storm it was beautiful and sunny. I had let the cats out to play—they were stir-crazy and had been housebound late into the spring due to excessive rains and unseasonably cold whether. I went about my business but quickly heard a shrieking jay outside our kitchen door. The jay had backed our large tom cat into a corner. I opened the door and broke up the standoff; the cat gratefully skulked in the door. Hours later, I let the cat out again. This time I watch to see how this bird is bullying my dear tom. So, the cat prowls around and begins eating some grass. The jay arrives instantly shrieking and swooping at my cat. The cat is up for the sport and begins leaping at the bird, which I have no doubt he’ll catch given enough tries. The bird is up to more than sport and is endangering its life behaving like this. I scoop the cat up and go inside. This goes on for a few days—we let the cats out and the jay chases them. This little blue bird is now a world-class terrorist and the cats are jumpy 24/7, indoors and out.
Now, I go out into the yard and the jay starts swooping on me. Shrieking and squawking. As I duck and curse, my eye catches the faintest blue-grey movement on the ground. Two chicks. Two baby jay chicks, fluffy and bouncy, hop along the fence line awkwardly. They cannot fly or escape any predator. They cannot get back up to whatever safe place they fell from, so they hop the ground while mom and dad announce and promptly attack any visitors to the yard. There are usually 3-5 eggs per pair of jays, so we wonder what became of the others. We see one young bird flying around in the treetops… a sibling. Meanwhile the fluffier slower chick on the ground is found dead one morning by the fence. I sadly scoop up the bird and take him out to the trash can in front of the house—a shrieking jay following me the whole way out of the yard and down the driveway. The remaining bird on the ground gets stronger and sleeker daily… loosing his fluffy useless chick feathers which serve not much purpose outside his nest. Mom and dad continue to come down and feed junior groundling; picking up grubs from the lawn and running them over to the screeching baby with his little red mouth drawn wide and his winglets a-flapping.
We recognize the noise now and come to the window to watch feeding times. After repeated removals of predatory cats from the backyard (upon the sounding of the jay ‘alarm’, of course), the parents have become accustomed to our presence in the yard and our role as protectors for their remaining chick We now do yard work as the baby chick hops around and tests its wings. We’ve even grown impatient at times—hoping that the chick could move along faster in gaining the control and strength in its wings. We are expecting a dozen people in our yard next week for a ritual and party. Each morning we look outside now. Has our little chick flown to the fencetop yet? Has he met a predator in the night? Each morning we watch ‘breakfast’ as mom collects grubs from the lawn just as the sun first warms the earth. We have no idea how much longer our backyard will serve as a big Jay nest, but we know that we will miss our friend when it finds its way over the fence and out into the world.
To be party to these events everyday in curiosity and anticipation—to have all our Springtime plans and work come to a halt around them… the loud cries and urgency of a bird open-mouthed and squawking for food… fierce parents swooping down at relatively gargantuan human beings or into the paws of feline predators with their hatchlings being the one all-encompassing obsession—is to know the tenacity of life and what we call to each Beltane when we honor fertility and the drive to perpetuate itself that is inherent to all life.
