"Naked as a Jaybird..."

Don't know where that expression came from, but I've heard it all my life...all the Blue Jays I've ever seen had plenty of feathers and weren't the least bit naked...in the 19th century the expression was 'naked as a robin' though I have no idea when 'jaybird' was substituted. Too, in surfing the web for background info on the quote I discovered info on the 1965 start of "Jaybird" magazine out of Southern California that in the blossoming days of hippie-dom dealt with the free-spirited issue of public nudity...peace, dude...

Naturally, I have a reason for leading in with that...2 days ago I pulled in from work, into the peaceful cul de sac while most everyone is off at work...opened my car door and then sat mulling through the decision process of which load of junk I take in first or leave for later, like I do every single day. Right away I heard a Blue Jay screech and said to myself,"Ah, a Blue Jay...". Then I heard another one and said, "Ah, another Blue Jay..." while I continued to mull through my way-too-plenteous 'stuff'. As I quickly decided to screw it and take nothing in, I realized there was quite the cacophony of several Jays in the tree beside the house.

If you read enough of my posts you know how I espouse Nature as a wonderful teacher if we will but stop and listen. Jays get riled up when they need a show of force, and they need a show of force when they have a potential foe in their territory. It's pretty thick woods from the yard-less house back down into the ravine, but with leaves off the trees I could at least look for shapes...and there it was. One of the 2 hawks I catch glimpses of from time to time. With myriad branches in the way, I really couldn't see any more than it was a Buteonidae member, sitting there non-plussed with the Jays bouncing around limb to limb trying to annoy the hawk enough to take wing.

Red-Shoulder Hawk (Buteo lineatus elegans)

I went inside to let Mercy out, and grabbed the camera to quietly go out the back door, forgetting that Mercy would make a mad dash to attend to any squirrels within sight of the feeder. The hawk looked down our way, and I was barely able to get a good look at it before it decided to head deeper into the woods. Again from earlier posts, you've seen my other pictures of a brace of hawks, and without thinking too hard figured these were the same...the two locations are very close together and they freely course through their territorial range.

Not so. To my surprise, the jay-riling hawk is a Red-Shoulder Hawk, and is colored quite differently on the breast than my beloved Red-Tail Hawk pictured below from a couple of days ago. And then I take a moment and remember Red-Tails like access to open areas, where Red-Shoulders are more prone to be within the woods.

Red-Tail Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

Red-Shoulders aren't seen as much as Red-Tails as they are prone to be a little more reclusive, though living within urban America you can't really hide in too many places...one of many reasons that if sprawl cannot be controlled, then we must incorporate significant green spaces amidst the asphalt jungles.

Anyway, just my ramblings for the early morn. Where I park to take Mercy for her woods walk, there is this storm drain she swears has critters in it, so she runs over to it just to make sure...took an artsy snap of it for your viewing pleasure. It's really grate, too.

Never knew rust could look so cool...