When the Blue Jays Have Had it with You

a special moment of connection when the wild birds have gotten just fed-up enough to tolerate you

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I never get photos of Blue Jays.

Well, not never I guess. There was this one time when a Blue Jay sat still long enough for a single portrait.

But in all the years since, my efforts at Blue Jay photography consist mostly of being excited to see the Blue Jays arrive, grabbing my camera, and trying as hard as I can to sneak up to the window while they inevitably spot me coming from a mile away and depart-in-a-flash.

The thing about Blue Jays is, they are entirely too observant. Also absurdly clever. And way, way too suspicious. All in all, they are just not having it with my painstakingly slow efforts to approach the window with a camera and record them in all their cerulean glory. Either way, I enjoy the show, but the bar of my expectations for getting pictures was subterranean :)

But it turns out, the key to gaining a Blue Jay’s trust around here is just to hang around long enough for them to get fed-up with you!

A sunny autumn morning in Maine is a perfect time to take your cup of hot tea outside and curl up on a bench to do some writing. I filled the feeders before I sat down, and then promptly got caught up in transferring the myriad wanderings of my inner landscape into a stream of characters trailing a blinking cursor across a trackless void of white screen. As ever, my trusty camera was tucked snugly beside me, where I expected not to use it at all. I keep it with me “just in case” while maintaining a zen-like resignation to the universal law that wildlife appears only when you have to run back inside to grab your camera.

Black-capped chickadees fluttered to and fro amongst the feeders, occasionally chased by a scolding squirrel whose greatest frustration was that she couldn’t be in three places at once. The only thing in the life of a squirrel that is better than eating sunflower seeds is eating sunflower seeds while preventing anyone else from eating sunflower seeds. There can be no peace at one pile of seeds while there is someone enjoying a different pile of seeds nearby.

Absorbed in my typing, I had no idea how much time had passed when a blue flutter set a nearby branch in motion. I glanced up into the impatient gaze of a Blue Jay.

She looked at the feeder, overflowing with sunflower seeds. She looked at me, exasperation written plainly across her brow. And suddenly, it clicked. She had been watching me for a while. Watching me tap away at this box on my lap, entirely oblivious to the fact that I was taking up space right in the middle of an absolute feast of sunflower seeds. And I had been there forever. And I was showing no signs of moving anytime soon.

And so one fed-up Blue Jay was deciding that she’d had just about enough of this waiting around, and was coming in for some seeds right now, thank you very much.

It was lovely. Having been labelled an irritant instead of a threat, this one adult Blue Jay, and a second, younger Blue Jay, began making regular trips, filling up their crops, coming back for seconds and thirds and more.

And oh my goodness, do you see this look she’s giving me? Like, “Oh, you’re still here?”

“Really? Have you nothing else at all to do with yourself?”

Close enough for me to see the tiny feather details at the base of her beak, her sensitive whiskers, those dramatic eyebrows…

Close enough to wonder just what she thought about me, and wonder if she could tell by my face just what I thought about her :)

Honestly, it was so nice. I’ve never had the Blue Jays get so used to me before. If only I had realized sooner, all I needed to do was get on their last nerve :) Wishing you all the best of fed-up wildlife in your nature connections to come! 🤣

This is all a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it is absolutely true that settling quietly into one spot is a reliable key to seeing more wildlife.

For me at least, it does take much longer than you think! I often think I’ve been sitting still for a very long time, waiting for some startled birds to return - only to glance at my watch and find that it’s only been a few of the longest minutes of my life. 🤣

And there’s something about posture, as well, I think, something about the way you come across when they’re watching you watching out for them. I mean, if you’re doing nothing else but sitting there intently waiting for them to draw near, that’s a bit risky, right?

So, getting accidentally absorbed in something for 20-30 minutes outside really is a perfect recipe for your wild neighbors to decide that you’re just an ordinary, harmless part of the landscape - and that will always be worth the wait!