Alarm calls of jays give way to crows; the crows to a raven. With each corvid, the cry comes from higher in the blue—and closer to the bone.
blue jays
The stream’s dark thread. A jay pierces it with his bill three times. The scarlet oak I planted so long ago is flying all its red flags.
The tulip tree in the yard has reached that stage where it could be sculpture, each remaining yellow leaf placed just so, jeered at by jays.
A rattle of falling acorns where jays forage. Two pileated woodpeckers in succession land on the dead elm, red crests blazing in the sun.
A jay walks the metal ridge of the springhouse roof, where a tangled mass of Virginia creeper has stretched red tentacles over the shingles.
A turkey vulture glides low over the trees, circles once to gain altitude, setting off a jay and a squirrel, and soars off down the ridge.
Cold and quiet, with a sky almost as blue as the jays in the treetops. One of them keeps making a rattling sound, as if clearing its throat.
The sky darkens, squirrels and jays scold an unseen threat, a pileated woodpecker makes a histrionic exit. Then nothing. The sky brightens.
A blue jay skulks through the trees at the woods’ edge but still a nuthatch spots him, and within seconds a mob of small birds assembles.
Heard but not seen: two blue jays commenting on the woods below. Seen but not heard: two gray squirrels sneaking under the house.
On a crystal-clear morning, the whinnying cry of a red-bellied woodpecker seems full of angst, and a jay’s rasping call—pure frustration.
Sunrise stains the treetops. The woods are full of anxious-sounding calls: chipmunks, jays, nuthatches, an endlessly scolding squirrel…
Cold, all-morning rain. Tall goldenrod stalks bow their shaggy heads. From up on the ridge, the nasal calls of blue jays.
A leaf-footed bug lands on the railing, orange-tipped antennae glowing in the sun. From the edge of the woods, a blue jay’s raspy cry.