Page 22 - Animal Kin

that the fledglings stay with their parents for as long as two months- she wasn’t ready to be on her own and it appeared that we had become her family. We found an old rabbit cage under the porch and set it up on the back deck. I was determined that we wouldn’t tame her but we would feed her and protect her.
I have never been especially fond of Blue jays- they are just too big and bold and loud and seem to scare off the smaller birds. But this goofy little jay quickly wormed its way into my heart. I couldn’t stop her from landing on me and searching me for food. We didn’t want to keep her in a cage, except at night, so she started following us around, all over the yard and even into the house. She stayed close.
One morning I looked out the window and saw a huge Blue jay on the deck looking at Kitty-Kitty. I watched quietly as this adult bird then went further around to the back yard and began feeding what I counted as two of its own babies. I carried Kitty-Kitty’s cage and food dishes out to the center of the yard and put her on top of the cage and went inside to watch from the house. Both parents completely ignored her as they followed their babies around the yard feeding them. For most of the day they were within eyesight of Kitty-Kitty and they never acknowledged her. She hopped around a