After I finished this, I realized that my jays probably have more faith in me than I deserve. There was another incident here several years ago when the result was solely because of their own skill with no help from me whatsoever. The week before that particular event, I happened to look out my front window just as a hawk intercepted a jay, brought it to the ground, and killed it so fast there wasn’t a sound. About a week later, I was doing dishes and looking out over the valley below the house through the bay window above the sink as usual when all of the sudden screaming jays suddenly appeared from all directions. Included in the mob were those coming from the woods beyond the river on the other side of the road, a fair distance from the house. They streamed past on either side of the house and toward the slope beside it.
I immediately went out that time, too, but this time I could see nothing but a whirlwind of leaves and debris flying in all directions from point about 20’ from the stone wall at the base of the slope. The fury of the jays combined with the ungodly screams and steepness of the slope caused me to pause rather than crawl up there to see what was going on.
And it was a good thing I did, too, because a red-tailed hawk shot out of that vortex of sound and fury and scared the daylights out of me.
As soon as he did, the jays almost instantly grew silent and returned to whatever they had come from in response to the call for help. Later I found nothing but a few feathers to mark the occasion.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS | More