My Blue Jay Friends

I have a couple of blue jays that spend an enormous amount of time in my yard.  I enjoy having them around, as they have provided a lot of entertainment for me.  Kino, on the other hand, does not like them sharing our space.  If he sees them in the yard, he barks and chases them away.  He even seems to know when they are out of his view in the front yard because countless times he has barked (his "get away from our house" bark) and I'll look out the kitchen window expecting to see a delivery person approaching the door and all I see are the blue jays on the front lawn.

This spring I planted flower seeds in the yard.  I always enjoy seeing them slowly sprout up and turn into a full grown flower so I plant seeds each year.  Not long after I had planted the seeds, one of the blue jays was in the yard almost every day.  Flying over to a small wooden table a couple feet away from where I was sitting and using his beak, he would repeatedly smack something against the base of the table.  I assumed it was some type of small nut he was wanting to crack open and didn't think much of it as I had seen them do the same thing on the gutter outside my office window. I enjoyed these daily visits in part because I loved how comfortable he seemed to be around me (as long as Kino was inside the house).

Fast forward a couple of months and all the seeds I planted are now fully grown flowers . . . all except one . . . none of the Morning Glory seeds I planted have shown any signs of life.  Those areas of the yard at just plain dirt.  Contemplating what could have gone wrong with my Morning Glory seeds, all of the sudden a bell went off in my head . . . that was what the blue jay was trying to crack open on the base of my wood table every morning.  Those little goof balls managed to dig up every single Morning Glory seed I had planted.

The fun with blue jays doesn't end there.  Just yesterday, I went out into the backyard and one of the blue jays was just sitting there looking at me.  He was only a few feet away from me and didn't move at all as I approached the patio furniture.  He just kept staring at me.  "What's going on?" I said to him, as I sat down in the chair and just then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  I looked over and saw that the little solar panel that is attached to one of the strings of outdoor lights was hanging down a couple feet from the gutter, instead of being tucked up in the gutter where it usually is.  Looking at the blue jay, I said "What did you do?" and he looked down at the ground, then looked back up and made eye contact with me.  "You need to be more careful with my lights buddy," I said as I laughed.  He continued to stare at me, so I said, "Don't worry, I'm not mad.  I'll go get the ladder and fix it."  That seemed to make him happy and after another minute or so, he flew away.

After going back in the house, I pulled out my book "Animal Speak" by Ted Andrews to find out what it means when blue jays show up in your life.  Among other things, it said "The blue jay reflects that a time of greater resourcefulness and adaptability is about to unfold.  You are going to have ample opportunities to develop and use your abilities."   I giggled when I read "The blue jay is a reminder to follow through on all things -- to not start something and then leave it dangling."  I saw a picture in my mind of the solar panel dangling down from the gutter and wondered if that was his message to me.  Guess it's time to figure out what I haven't followed through on.  ;-)