Seen last week on the hike to Realization Point (near Boulder, Colorado).
On the hike, I talked to a man who was looking for the specific point called "Realization," and I wasn't sure exactly where it was. Then I ran into a man who was sitting on a rock waiting for his brother who'd gone ahead, fixated on finding Realization Point. I said, "Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point." The rock-sitting brother seemed to like that notion.
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62 comments:
Stellar’s Jay.
Steller's Jay or Western Jay maybe.
Thanks.
Wikipedia: "The Steller's jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) is a jay native to western North America, closely related to the blue jay found in the rest of the continent, but with a black head and upper body. It is also known as the long-crested jay, mountain jay, and pine jay. It is the only crested jay west of the Rocky Mountains.... The Steller's jay occurs in most of the forested areas of western North America as far east as the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains from southern Alaska in the north to northern Nicaragua[5] completely replacing the blue jay prevalent on the rest of the continent in those areas. Its density is lower in the central Rocky Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and eastern Utah) plus the desert or scrubland areas of the Great Basin (e.g. Nevada, western Utah, southern Arizona and parts of California). Some hybridization with the blue jay in eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, especially Colorado, has been reported."
Vote #3 for Stellar's Jay, AKA the black-headed bluebird or the blue-bodied blackbird.
Steller's Jay.
Looks like a Stellar's Jay. You will have seen the more typical blue jay back in the Midwest.
We set up a feeding station for our blue jays -- it consists of something that looks like a slinky toy, arranged into a ring, and it holds peanuts. It also attracts a red-bellied woodpecker that also loves peanuts. Unfortunately a family of squirrels has learned how to shinny up the feeder pole, climb down onto the feeder, and winkle out peanuts, making it as much a squirrel feeder as a blue jay feeder.
Jay for sure.
>>We set up a feeding station for our blue jays
Heh. That is of course *any* bird feeder - which Jays will always terrorize and dominate.
A Stellar's Jay walks into a bar, downs a few shots and then starts to leave; the bartender yells, "Hey, you owe us $15!" and the Jay says "Put it on my bill."
"which Jays will always terrorize and dominate"
The avian variant of Muslims.
Why doesn't a Stellar's Jay wear shorts?
His pecker's on his face.
Both the Stellar's Jay and the realization that there is no point are native to Boulder, Colorado.
>>"Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point."
A variant of the old travelers' maxim (that distinguishes them from tourists): It is not about the destination; it is about the journey.
Oh robother, are you in CO, because your comment about the Dictatorship of Boulder is spot on.
Yes, I know it used to be the "Republic" of Boulder but not anymore since our present Dictator Polis is from Boulder.
OK, Master Po.
I now realize they weren't kidding about boulders in Boulder.
"Steller's not Stellar's" said the Word Nazi.
Researchers have heard them imitating squirrels, Northern Flickers, Northern Goshawks, White-breasted Nuthatches, and mechanical sounds such as water sprinklers.
That belongs to Sheldon.
Truly annoying birds.
They mimic many other larger birds. They are loud. They chase my mom's pet finches away from the deck bird feeders.
Like crows they seem to learn how to hunt for worms by watching robins.
Then they chase the robins off the lawn.
I see what might be part of the sunshine canyon burn scar in the distance.
"Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point."
Beautiful.
"Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point."
Someone's been streaming old episodes of "Kung Fu" again!
When I went to university there we called 5 square miles surrounded by reality. Nothing's changed.
AA: "Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point."
Evoking Peter Strzok's text to Lisa Page:
"I hesitate in part [to join the Mueller team] because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
https://opensociet.org/2018/07/25/in-russiagate-testimony-before-congress-fbi-attorney-page-admits-there-is-no-there-there/
Although Strozk's gut sense turned out to be correct, he did sign up with Mueller and was rewarded for this initiative by being exiled to the FBI's personnel office after the damming Strozk-Page texts were found by the IG.
It has been reported that second brain (in your gut) has only 100 million neurons compared to 100 billion in the brain, but sometimes it is better to go with your gut.
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
@Ice Nine, our regular bird feeder has spring-loaded perches so that the feeder closes when a squirrel or a heavy bird (like a jay or a morning dove) gets on it. So far only the house finches and gold finches get on the thistle seed feeder.
"Sometimes the best realization is that there is no point."
Then again, I've heard that all Madisonians are liars.
As said by others, Stellar's Jay ... easily one of the most obnoxious birds you'll ever encounter.
I like Steller's Jays. But I like corvids. Pacific Northwest is silly with them.
Besides Steller's Jays, the Pacific Northwest also has a place called Point No Point, which has a lighthouse on it. So someone or other evidently thought there was some kind of point to it.
It is renowned in our history for the Point No Point Treaty, which among other things abolished slavery among the tribes in the area.
Like corvids, too, but the crows in my neighborhood just torment hawks all day long.
As above, Stellers Jay. We have hordes of them in the Sierra Nevada up on the Tuolumne, near Hetch Hetchy dam.
We used to go to Camp Mather on the Tuolumne canyon rim every summer. The jays are everywhere.
Mark Twain on blue jays. Since he writes from the California gold fields, these must have been Steller's jays.
It's a tiny blue crested dinosaur.
We have hordes of them in the Sierra Nevada up on the Tuolumne, near Hetch Hetchy dam.
Lots of them at Lake Arrowhead, above Los Angeles. We had a weekend place there for years. There used to be lots of squirrels but West Nile Virus killed them all.
To complete the circle of today's posts, Blue Jay versus cat. The cat doesn't always win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMHC9vWrTew
The most interesting part of Steller's Jay is Steller himself.
That's a nice looking bird. Will search for it's name. Thesmartmonk
Steller's sea eagle and Steller's sea lion are pretty impressive too.
The sea eagles is practically a roc, and the sea lion is more like an aquatic bear.
There's quite a bit of his livestock around here.
George Harrison wrote a song "Blue Jay Way"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coz0TmK2ZIg
Just a google... Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri macrolopha .
Steller Jays' beautiful to look at, but then they open their mouths.
It's not the realization that matters,
(You can find that on a mobile device)
It's sitting on the rock so patiently,
So you don't have to pay no price.
You learn to outlast the damn jaybirds,
So you dont go through their pestering shit twice.
. . . some brothers are like that, y'know?
To my CO peeps.
Get involved. Save our state. Here it is.
We have very well behaved blue jays here in NW Indiana. They do not hog the feeders at all. Hairy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, cardinals, house finches, goldfinches, blue birds, chickadees, white breasted nuthatches—all much more frequent visitors than blue jays. It's mostly the peaceable kingdom out there. But I have a pellet rifle ready to go after any starlings that visit.
When I lived in the SoCal mountains I became great friends with the local steller's jays. They get to know a person. They're great mimics. I heard one do a perfect hawk sound and the funniest was when I was out walking and hear what sounded exactly like R2D2 bleeps and whistles. It was a Steller's jay. They also told me exactly when and where a coyote was about. I never had a problem with the jays at feeders. They mostly would just come close if I was giving out peanuts.
The most interesting part of Steller's Jay is Steller himself.
I was hoping Steller's first name would be "Jay".
I grew up in SoCal with Scrub Jays and Stellers Jays. When I moved East, the Blue Jays out here seemed shy by comparison.
I’m used to normal blue jays, so when Meade called it a blue jay, it didn’t seem right, but I accepted that there could be some variation on a blue jay.
Paddy O: I've seen crows dive bomb coyotes.
Clark, many years ago, I worked with a guy who was studying to be an ornithologist. One weekend I went dove hunting, and when I next saw him, he asked how many I shot. "None, I said, the hunting was lousy-we ended up just shooting a bunch of non-game birds." He looked like I smacked him hard over the head. "No! You shouldn't shoot anything but game birds in season! What's wrong with you! What did you shoot?!" I replied, "Starlings." His face brightened. "Oh, good, how many of the bastards did you kill?"
PM, I've seen roadrunners out smart coyotes...meep meep!
Blue Winged Teal.
No...make that...a Blue Jay.
Blue Stellar's Jay.
I have a dream that birds will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their feathers, but by the content of their character.
It's really embarrassing when people from less woke areas come to town and say shit like: "What's this bird?" Really? Is that how you talk about birds that look a little different where you come from?
Blogger bagoh20 said...
I have a dream that birds will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their feathers, but by the content of their character.
Stiller’s Jays are still screwed.
@Althouse:
The Steller's jay occurs in most of the forested areas of western North America as far east as the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains from southern Alaska in the north to northern Nicaragua[5] completely replacing the blue jay prevalent on the rest of the continent in those areas.
Not quite true. The steller's jays (genus Cyanocitta) share the West with another kind of “blue” jay — the “scrub jays” of genus Aphelocoma — (6 species of which are) found in the western U.S. and Mexico, as well as (1 in) Florida. At least out in the far West, in e.g. the redwood forest(s) of coastal California, I see more scrub jays than steller's — though there are lots of both sorts. I feed peanuts to a pair of scrub jays outside my house here, which they like a lot.
As Wikipedia puts it concerning the close relationship of all of the “blue jays” of North America: “This genus [Aphelocoma] belongs to the group of New World (or ‘blue’) jays — possibly a distinct subfamily — which is not closely related to other jays, magpies or treepies.”
I have bird-feeder hanger that has a long cylinder part way up the pole to prevent the squirrels from climbing up. It works. You see the squirrels sitting on the ground studying it but they haven't found a way. Except, this spring a little squirrel with white ears, a baby from this season, is able to jump to the top of the cylinder, shinny the rest of the way up, move along the narrow iron holders and get to the feeder. I guess there are gifted athletes even in the animal kingdom.
"It's really embarrassing when people from less woke areas come to town and say shit like: "What's this bird?" Really? Is that how you talk about birds that look a little different where you come from?"
Really?
I welcome the honest curiosity of visitors to local environs.
And when I travel I take my well-weathered copy of Patterson's bird guide.
Or am I missing some clever sarcasm that's going over my head?
By all means -- please clarify.
To be fair, the two species of Cyanocitta — stelleri and cristata — are colored dramatically differently.
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