Showers give way to tentative sunlight by late morning. It’s quiet. A lone blue jay calls.
blue jays
Sunlight leaks down from the treetops. A blue jay’s brassy call. Then the silence resumes where it left off.
Cold. With the heavy inversion layer, a jay in the yard who sounds as if he’s practicing scales must compete with the whine of tires on I-99.
Mackerel sky like a furrowed brow. One, three, six blue jays descend on the feeder. The squirrel flees. One jay screams like a hawk.
Clear and cold. A sound like a cat mewing, then a creaking door: just a jay. The sun pierces the thinning forest with one gimlet beam.
A sharp-shinned hawk chases a crow; the crow flies off. The hawk chases a jay; the jay chases back. What fun! thinks the jay. I’m hungry! thinks the hawk.
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
Half an hour past sunrise, three sharp, rising notes turn out to be from a blue jay, who quickly switches to the familiar, declarative mode.
Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns.
A tiger swallowtail visiting garlic mustard—wan white flower heads momentarily covered in glory. A blue jay yells from the highest treetop.
Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.
A corvid morning: crow, raven, and jay under a heavy gray sky. The half-cooing, half-scolding sound of gray squirrels in courtship.
Scattered blue holes in the clouds open and close again, despite what feels like a clearing wind. A jay does his best imitation of a hawk.
In my left ear, the sound of traffic going through the gap. In my right, white-throated sparrow, nuthatch, raven, jay. It looks like rain.