Page 21 - Animal Kin

From halfway down the block, high in a tree, a semi-wild Blue jay spots my arriving pick-up truck and, with a clumsy grace, swoops down the street and circles me as I get out and then lands on a branch over my front porch. She doesn’t wait patiently as I go inside but instead flies around to the back door and is waiting on my back deck by the time I get to the kitchen. I feel a little like Snow White in the forest, as
I have for the last few months, while my family and I gotten have to enjoy a kinship with this young jay.
She came to us from the claws of one of my sister’s cats when my youngest daughter spotted movement in the dark- ness as we were leaving their house one evening in May. She was quite large and feathered, healthy looking and un- harmed, and I thought we would feed her in the morning and then see her off. She spent that night in a box on the back porch of our home. In the sunlight the next morning I could see the distinctive blue in her wing feathers and read that moistened dry cat food was a good meal for Blue jays. I handed “Kitty-Kitty” piece after piece of kibble and she gob- bled it down and stood there waiting for more. She showed no interest in flying off, though clearly she could fly.
She would hop around the deck and fly from chair to chair but didn’t leave. We read more about Blue jays and learned