JAY 1942

During the late spring of my 13th year, two of the local little kids found two Blue Jays with just enough feathers to tell they were Jays. One was hurt and did not live but Jay, as we named him, was one strong little guy and hungry. I took him home, much to my parents delight, and started my education about Blue Jays. They eat bugs, worms, flies, nuts, seeds, and anything that wiggles, crawls, or squirms. Jay was to little to eat on his own so I had to push the cut up stuff down his throat with a small wooden dowel. Birds need gravel in their craws to grind up their food, but how much only a bird knows.

I kept him in the house, warmed by a night-light in a can wrapped in a towel. He stayed up against that warm towel until he heard me and thought food. Once his eyes opened, he would squawk for food at any movement. A baby bird can eat all day long seven days a week and still want more. I had to give him hamburger part of the time since I could not collect enough bugs in early spring. I ground up nuts, corn, apples and seeds. I think dad would feed him during the day while I was in school. Jay grew and sprouted feathers and soon could eat on his own. Jay really got to be fun and he had a personality of his own.

Jays are peckers and thumpers by nature and his favorite place was to perch on a shoulder and peck ears, hair and a face if you turned to look at him. It hurt if he got your ear lobe and started to shake it. Once he was able to move quickly by hopping and half flying we had to put him out side at night in a large dog cage due to the noise he made. Blue Jays are just noisy and do not have a musical call.

Summer was in full force; school was out when Jay seemed to have enough feathers to fly. I would take him out of his cage and let him run around the garden and lawn looking for his own food. When finished he would come running as fast as he could and jump up in my lap and head for the top of my head.

One evening I pitched him up in the air about three feet off the ground and he tried the wings. He kept coming back for more and almost flew that first evening. When he had enough play he went onto his cage jumped up on the perch, stuck his head under a wing, and went to sleep.

Jay took to wing when he was a little over half size. There is no way a wild bird can be given enough of the proper food to keep him on growth schedule. I probably over loaded him on gravel. Know I think the heavy weight of the gravel probably delayed his flight plan. Jay would fly all over the area but never out of sight. He would come on command and fly into the house when invited. His favorite perch was dad’s pipe. We have pictures on a movie film of Jay pounding a sunflower seed against dad’s pipe stem.

One day a flock of Blue Jays landed with much noise in the top of the very tall oak trees behind our house a block away. Jay took off after them and went out of sight. I thought he was gone forever. When they all flew away I knew it.

Dad said all the right things fathers say to brokenhearted sons but it did not help. I went into the house to cook dinner and since it was a hot evening we went out side to eat. As we started to eat, here came Jay calling from way off all the way home to set down in the middle of the table looking for something to eat. By this time he was full-grown and was a beautiful bird. He stopped going into his cage to sleep but went off to the tall trees. He would be back with the first person awake in the morning. I knew he would fly away soon and I was ready in my hart for him to go. He would check in, in the morning, take his bath in the birdbath, and go for the day. If I were not home when he came looking, he would fly all over the area till he found me. I remember one afternoon I had gone to the bank in Clarendon for dad. Jay squalled from on high, landed on my shoulder shouting disgust in my ear. The look on the faces of people on the sidewalk was real neat. I picked him off on my finger looked him in the eye and said, “ I am not deaf you can speak softer. You know I don’t like to be yelled at by a child”. Whenever he found me we would walk home together.

Jay was not afraid of anything and that was a big concern. Jay would hop along side the lawn mower and catch bugs as they flew out of the way. All the neighbors were warned to look out for him when they cut grass. He developed into a neighborhood pet of a different kind. Jay spent more and more time on his own and several days would pass before he would check in to see us. I guess he found a group of Jays and left the area and lived happily ever after. It was a fun around our house that summer.

WARNING WARNING WARNING

This is the place to stop reading to the little ones. The rest is “R” rated and for some “X.”

We only had one cat in resident and that cat lived because he belonged to a childhood friend who lived near by. I felt at that time a good cat was a dead cat and did my best to make them all good. One morning Jay was a pile of feathers in the driveway and a trail of feathers led to the friends’ house. I found the uneaten parts of Jays’ body on the top step. I buried Jay with the cat in the garden next to the sunflowers, which was one of Jay’s favorite stops. Now all of Jay was buried in one place.