A Steller's Jay

I live, temporarily, with my oldest son, his wife and daughter in a suburb of Seattle. People here work (or worked) for Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Boeing and similar or supporting businesses.

The plots here are the size of postage stamps. As evidence of the area's growth, a single home across the street from my window was razed, the plot divided into thirds and a new house built on each and, as if to demonstrate the new economic reality, all three houses remain unsold.

It is sad that this boom and bust minimized the land surrounding the houses since most people will find it difficult to put in a vegetable garden to help out in these challenging days. My daughter-in-law has done her best though and a small set of raised beds now graces the front yard where some bedraggled rose bushes used to reign.

My window looks out over this tiny plot of perhaps 100 square feet or so, with a bamboo trellis for pea vines and a small but thoughtful selection of vegetables in an area surrounded by stones and only briefly shaded by the shore pine that stands up near the sidewalk. The steepness of the slope on which the house is built means that my window on the third floor is only slightly above street level (the driveway descends from the street at about a 20 degree angle and getting the mail is like climbing Monadnock). Well ,,, perhaps I exaggerate

There are several well-kempt cats in the neighborhood who strut by regally seemingly under the impression that they own it all (and who is to say that they do not), but they are not indulging in their usual perambulations this morning. so I have been watching a Steller's jay, with a fine jaunty crest and a raucous laugh, flit between the branches of the globular crest of the small pine and the ground.

I started watching him just to make sure that he wasn't destroying the garden, but it was soon clear that he was picking up his snacks from the area between the rows of seedlings.

He is a snazzy dresser, but a bit skittish. His head and breast are black or nearly so, fading to and irridescent dark blue. (If you are an artist I would suggest a pthalocyanine blue.)

At the moment he seems quite amused as the tiger cat named Walter and a white cat known to me only as "the ghost" have appeared and started to fight over a small and meaningless piece of territory on the opposite bank of the asphalt river. He balances on a drooping branch, cocking his head this way and that, not seeming to take sides but also not trusting enough in their focus to drop down and get more food.

In the time it took me to write that last paragraph, the battle of the cats moved further down the street. The jay waited a few moments and flitted to a high rock and is waiting ... just to make sure they don't return.