BIRDS 51 – A JAY, AND THOUGHTS OF PICASSO

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Jay, in our garden; 6 Mar 2014.

Jays were the very first birds I saw in our garden after moving in all those years ago, and they are often around.  But they are habitually shy, and the thought of trying to photograph them has never occurred to me.  But today all that changed when, looking out of the kitchen window, I was confronted with one perched in our Upper Oak, really not that far away.  The merest movement at a window is usually enough to send them scattering, but today as I looked out, this bird moved unconcernedly around the Oak – and it stayed, and it stayed – and I dashed into the next room and grabbed the only camera to hand – which luckily had a telezoom attached.

Shooting through a double-glazed window held no great promise of success but, as opening the window was certain to scare the creature away, I braced myself back against the larder door, and started firing.  Lots of shots, because lots, I knew, were destined to be failures.

Let’s be quite clear where we are here – I love crows.  Many think of crows only as black birds, but Jays and Magpies are crows too.  In company with another of my loves –  gulls – crows get a bad press, being highly successful, intelligent and opportunistic, killers and scavengers.  But I still love them and if asked if I would like a Rook or, better still, a Raven, to perch on my outstretched arm, I would jump at the chance.  Just think of Picasso’s Woman with a crow – and imagine enjoying such closeness and intimacy with one of these beings!  (And I greatly admire Picasso’s early work, up to around Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,  – but that’s another story!)

Jays get a bad press from devouring the eggs and young of other birds.  But something that is often forgotten that they aid the spread of Oak trees by burying vast numbers of acorns as winter food stores and then forgetting to retrieve some, which proceed to sprout as new Oaks.  This is the origin of the two Oaks in our garden, and more sprout in our “lawns” (I use the term is its loosest sense …) every year.

This Oak speaks of both death and rebirth.  Below the bird are some of last year’s dead leaves, which have stayed attached to these branches through the many storms and gales that have hammered us this year.  But all of the small twigs in this shot are covered in new buds – we are in March, and Spring is not far off.

D800 with 70-300 Nikkor at 300mm; 800 ISO.
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