Jays are SO AWESOME!
The niftiest thing happened at work today. While I was out on the porch watering the plants, one of the jays I feed came over to see what I was up to. She landed quite close and tilted her head nearly upside-down to stare at the water. Many pet birds like being spritzed, I understand, and some will even go in the shower with their owners. And wild birds certainly like to play in birdbaths and puddles. So it occurred to me to wonder whether Ambi1 might enjoy playing in the spray from the hose.
I was somewhat disinclined to believe that any wild bird, even one as friendly as Ambi, would really let a human mist them with a hose. Nonetheless, I aimed the hose off towards the parking lot (away from the bird) and capped it with my thumb to create a reasonably fine spray. Then I verrrrrrry slowly rotated it towards her, so that she would have plenty of time to see that the water was coming towards her, and move away if she objected.
But as it happened, she did not object in the least. When I hit the point where water droplets were landing in the area where Ambi was standing, I stopped moving, and she stayed and let the water shower her for ten or fifteen seconds before she flew up to land on a beam right above my head. She watched me from there while I finished watering the plants, and then I put a peanut out on the porch railing and she came down to get it, clearly not in the least offended by her shower.
Scrub jays are remarkably bold birds, and this is not the first time that Ambi has come by with a speculative look while I was using the hose, but all the same I still can't quite believe she let me mist her. A wild bird, you guys! In fact, I was so ridiculously excited when it happened that I dashed inside to call Vegan Receptionist and squee about it. (It was only 9am, but Vegan Receptionist is one of those terrifying morning people, and had probably been up for hours.)
You should probably be very glad right about now that you don't work with me. This is just a single blog entry; at work I will most likely not be shutting up about this all week.2
1 I have saddled the two jays I feed at work with the names Ambi and Secu. They almost certainly have no idea of this, because I invariably address them as "pretty bird!" If they did know, they would probably peck me to death.
2 Fortunately, my co-workers are probably pretty much inured to this sort of thing by now. A good forty percent of everything I say at work is about something my jays just did. Most of the rest of it is anecdotes about my cats.
I was somewhat disinclined to believe that any wild bird, even one as friendly as Ambi, would really let a human mist them with a hose. Nonetheless, I aimed the hose off towards the parking lot (away from the bird) and capped it with my thumb to create a reasonably fine spray. Then I verrrrrrry slowly rotated it towards her, so that she would have plenty of time to see that the water was coming towards her, and move away if she objected.
But as it happened, she did not object in the least. When I hit the point where water droplets were landing in the area where Ambi was standing, I stopped moving, and she stayed and let the water shower her for ten or fifteen seconds before she flew up to land on a beam right above my head. She watched me from there while I finished watering the plants, and then I put a peanut out on the porch railing and she came down to get it, clearly not in the least offended by her shower.
Scrub jays are remarkably bold birds, and this is not the first time that Ambi has come by with a speculative look while I was using the hose, but all the same I still can't quite believe she let me mist her. A wild bird, you guys! In fact, I was so ridiculously excited when it happened that I dashed inside to call Vegan Receptionist and squee about it. (It was only 9am, but Vegan Receptionist is one of those terrifying morning people, and had probably been up for hours.)
You should probably be very glad right about now that you don't work with me. This is just a single blog entry; at work I will most likely not be shutting up about this all week.2
1 I have saddled the two jays I feed at work with the names Ambi and Secu. They almost certainly have no idea of this, because I invariably address them as "pretty bird!" If they did know, they would probably peck me to death.
2 Fortunately, my co-workers are probably pretty much inured to this sort of thing by now. A good forty percent of everything I say at work is about something my jays just did. Most of the rest of it is anecdotes about my cats.