Wildlife

There are a lot of things I don't enjoy about mountain living.
The rain for months at a time is one. Long winters and short summers is another. The one thing I truly enjoy is the wildlife. Such as this lovely Steller's Jay on the left. My first year living in this lovely area Mom and Dad Steller's Jay thought it a wonderful idea to build a nest in the crook provided by the motion sensor light on my garage. I immediately turned off said light for fear it would bake the little eggs growing inside the nest. It wasn't an inconvenience even when I started parking out in the driveway so as not to disturb the little family living above. I was quite honored that they had chosen to share our home and like any good hostess wanted to make sure they were comfortable during their stay.
As time moved on I learned quite a bit about my neighbor's. One thing I learned is they really are quite loud. They have the amazing ability to mimic any bird call and when threatened they fought back with the call of the hawk. Apparently the most feared predator in the bird kingdom.
Unfortunately they thought I was a threat. Every morning they would cry out in mock hawk and wake the whole neighborhood. Including my very grumpy pubescent eldest son.
I confess that I often woke him, when they hadn't, to tell him of the new developments I had witnessed while spying on our blue neighbors.
"Dustin, I think the babies hatched I hear tiny bird sounds!"
"hrumph"
"Dustin, Daddy Jay was sitting on the porch rail just staring at me through the window!"
"grumph"
"Dustin, you should have seen the cat staring out the window at the Jays"
"Mom! I'm sleeping and I don't care!"
"Fine"
Disappointed I followed the lives of the Jays all on my own. By the time the babies were big enough to see from the ground the fascination had worn off just a little. I regret that I hadn't been paying attention and had no clue the babies had been booted from the nest on the fateful day that my dog Eddie discovered their existence.
He was quite excited to have some new fluffy blue balls to play with and even more excited to see that they made noise and ran about the yard. This of course must be purely for his amusement.
Ah... But the story does not end here. My absolutely disinterested pubescent son rescued one of those cute fluffy balls from the jaws of death and poor Eddie was made to watch his balls play with out him from the confines of the house. We're positive that all three babies grew up to be happy healthy Jays and make hawk sounds to this day.