July 4, 2007

RIVER WATCHER

THE SAGA OF SAMMY JAY

Rex Burress

A sharp bird call came from overhead, rather startling me in the dimness before dawn. It was a scrub jay, perched on the street power line, ironically silhouetted against the moon like an artistic cut-out, and evidently intrigued with another early riser.

Seeing that jay on an Oroville street reminded me of Missouriís "Sammy Jay," the eastern Blue Jay version created by Thornton W. Burgess for his "make-believe-anthropomorphic" nature bedtime stories in the 1940's.

The stories of the "Burgess Bird Book for Children" went like this: ... "Peter Rabbit caught a glimpse of a blue form shrieking away through the trees...he knew it in an instant, for there is no one with such a coat and voice like Sammy Jay with his pointed blue cap...it was he who stole Mrs. Robinís eggs...but then Sammy cried, ërun, Peter, run! Here comes Reddy Fox,í and Peter knew then that Sammy Jay does more good than harm." The fictional stories of Burgess always contained a nature truth and appealed to children, especially rabbits, much like the Peter Rabbit tales created in 1902 by Britainís Beatrix Potter.

Like the blue but cap-less CA scrub jay, the eastern blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata) is a handsome resident of the woods, and like jays in general, a noisy announcer of intruders. They are also prone to slip around and rob other bird nests as they are a persistent scavenger efficiently surviving anyway they can. There were many times as a rural boy hunter when I was stalking a fox or squirrel, that Sammy would squawk and uncover my best laid plans. Even so, the bird was beautiful, and a resident, electing to endure the snowy season as it added a note of life to the drab winter forest.

A pair of scrub jays built a nest in our plum tree one year, cleverly concealing the stick assemblage, but it wasnít good enough to deceive another member of the jay family- -the crow. Without qualms, the crows hung around until they discovered the nest, and then raided it when the fledglings were alone. Other than rather thick beaks, and a tendency to be vocal, there isnít much alike in crow and jay.

You see scrub jays dashing through the trees down by the riverside, seldom revealing either their nesting location or what they eat. You know the swallows and flycatchers are busy catching insects all day, and the gold finches raid seedy plants, but rarely do you see what the jay is eating.

If you go to a higher elevation, such as Oakland Feather River Camp at 3400 feet, you see the dark blue Stellarís Jay that also has a pointed cap. In that brushy habitat along Spanish Creek, you wonít, however, see any scrub jays as they stick to the lower foothills treating the chaparral as a permanent home. The camp jays are rather the clowns, bouncing around on the patio ever watchful of misplaced food, and usually having a nest in the camp trees as if fond of the human proximity. They watch the camping cabins for any morsel offered or found. In a leafy environment where birds are often difficult to spot, the Stellarís jay offers a highly visible wild animal for the visitorís to watch.

"If the bird has not preached to me, it has added to the resources of my life,

it has widened the field of my interests, it has afforded me another beautiful

object to love, and has helped me to feel more at home in this world."

ñJohn Burroughs