Let's go! Blue Jays!

I know it's all over this year for the Toronto Blue Jays. It was a disappointing year...again.

Not so in my back yard though. It was a great summer for the Blue Jays.

I had the delight of watching two baby blue jays awkwardly learning to find their way in the world. They lived for a time in the tall pine tree that spills over onto our deck, so I spent many a time sitting on the swing and watching their antics for the few weeks they were tiny. Blue jays can be very agressive, nasty birds to other songbirds...but somehow my heart attached itself to these two siblings in spite of what I knew they would become. I mean how can you not love faces like these?

Here they are on the little bird bath next to the pine tree:

I got a kick out of watching them flit from branch to branch. They were very tipsy. Landings on branches were executed with heads too far forward, little tails pointing skyward until they could get their balance and right themselves.

One sibling was unafraid of water - just jumped right in to get cooled off.

The other was timid, and was simply content to lap up the water below the bird bath that was being splashed down from above.

One late afternoon I brought my camera out for a few shots. I had been waiting to get a pic of Mama placing food in baby's mouth, but Mama would always hop way up into the heights of the tree for baby to follow....far away from the prying eyes of that lady on the swing.

Tonight was different. Mama and baby were perfectly within range.

Freeze for shot...press shutter.

Right on cue, my camera's batteries died.  (I had ignored it's earlier warnings).  Worse than that for a photographer though, was what happened next.

The 'timid' baby decided it was going to try to fly over the swing to the maple tree behind me to join its sibling who had accomplished that feat.

He didn't make it.

He swerved to avoid the cover above me, and he landed right beside me on the swing! (So cute! And my batteries were dead!) It was one of those 'slo-mo' moments. I sat in frozen silence. Mama and Papa were going crazy in the pine tree because their baby was sitting right beside 'that lady', but they could only watch and 'quack' because they wouldn't come near me. The baby although not seeming afraid of me, hopped around, managed to get underneath the swing, into another small tree by the deck, and then back to the pine tree. Mama scooted him back up into the heights of the tree. And I went to get fresh batteries.

Throughout the summer, these little ones, and their parents would wait for me to refresh the water and put the peanuts out each day, and in return they blessed me and gave me pictures. Mama and Papa have planted peanut trees for us.

The little ones are now large, loud, and cocky like their parents.

I think I can still distinguish them from the other Jays in the neighbourhood. They have spunk...very high energy and continually return to the same pine tree and bird bath. When I'm outside, they will begin to 'scream' and I can't resist. I put out the peanuts which they happily snatch up and go and 'plant' as their parents have shown them.

I hope these beautiful birds stick around much longer than their baseball namesakes.Who knows. Maybe one of these days, or even next year, one of them just might join me on the swing for old times sake.