The Latest Birdie News

mama + her husband built a fine nest on top of one of our front porch columns. it was woven tightly with paper birch twigs (i had to take a winter bud test in college to identify hundreds of trees) and neatly recycled plastic twine, all in a beautiful spiral pattern. mama sat on the nest for the longest time. i was wondering if her eggs were okay since she was there for so long. then one day two tiny heads peeked out above the rim of the nest when she was out hunting for food. two little black heads. every day mama would keep them cozy warm. she quietly sheltered them from view when i would step out to get the mail or newspaper. and after a while, when it got rather crowded, she left them for longer periods of time. she was never far away. just on a nearby tree branch, keeping an eye on them. then one day the two stellar's jay chicks stood up on the rim of the nest and we could see their whole bodies. i didn't see any blue. just black with the faintest hint of a "comb" on top of their head. they stood there, not making a sound for three days. never seeming to move. and then they were gone. off to their new world of flight i would hope.
the whole nurturing process was so quiet and purposeful.
then one day last week i was getting out the hose from storage and went to connect it up to the hose bib and two stellar's jays started squawking at me constantly. then they jumped from tree limb to tree limb getting closer to me, squawking all the while. such a clamor! and then they started flying at me. that was enough and so i heeded their warning and left the area. but i was curious too. would they do that again a while later? yep. and with my harms a-waving, since i didn't want my eyes pecked out (i watched THE BIRDS when i was little and lived near where it was filmed!), i scanned the area for evidence for the commotion. and there it was. another nest in a tree. but what a different family this was of stellar's jays. they weren't quiet parents. they were quite the opposite. would their babies turn out to have different personalities than our sweet family that lived on the front porch?
and so the world goes. all families, including birdies, are different and have different parenting styles.
(the painting is a photoshopped edition of one of my oil paintings called "clarity of adornment")