Duck and Cover
"They scattered into the trees, leaving no traces besides the memories of them swooping across the skies moments before"
-Field Notes 10/9/13
This week I couldn't help but still observe the birds that first appeared to me last week, the Sagebrush Sparrow. When I sat down Saturday night for my daily observation, I saw the tiny birds doing there normal routines. They would crash down from the sky to the dark pavement and scurry around for a few seconds grabbing what twigs meet their standards then would rise back to the trees hidden from sight. Then they disappeared for ten maybe fifteen minutes. Which is where that quote from above comes in. I looked around and found something really interesting, there were two blue birds swirling around the sky. Immediately I thought they were hunting my little friends that I've been observing. "The predators stalked the sky before they dived and made a perfect ten landing on the fence next to me" - Field notes 11/8/14
"One of the Blue Jays on the fence" Picture taken by Aaron Mastin on 11/8/14
The Blue Jays stayed for awhile but, when they left the Sparrows came back out and continued their daily routine. So I wondered if the Blue Jays were predators of my Sparrows so I looked it up. On the National Geographic page about Blue Jays it says Blue Jays are not carnivorous. Then goes on to say that Blue Jays will rarely eat meat and will settle for acorns, nuts and seeds. Sometimes they do attack smaller birds but, this is very out of the ordinary (National Geographic). So this leads me to think that they weren't responsible for the disappearance of my friends. Then what was? Maybe it was just an afternoon power nap.
The Sagebrush Sparrows came back out to finish their daily chores and right when I was about to call it a night they started dancing in the distance using the sunset as their backdrop. All they looked like were little black dots flying from one end of the sunset to the other, as if it was a race. Here's a picture of it below but, it was hard to catch them flying in picture so I didn't catch them with the sunset.
"Picture of the sunset that day" Taken by Aaron Mastin on 11/9/14
Works Cited
"Blue Jays, - National Geographic." National Geographic. N.P, 11 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
These are scrub jays. I have them in my yard (this year, I even had a nest of them). They don't eat little birds but they will eat baby birds--I've seen it happen. They love eggs and they are sort of bullies. They chase little birds away so they can get the seeds. I try to chase them away but Wes says their just doing their job--sort of like e e cummings in the mouse poem.
ReplyDeleteDo these birds tend to occupy certain places? I ask this because I have never once seen one of these birds where I live. Nor had I even heard of them before Farias mentioned them. I wish I had the opportunity to see these birds fly threw the sky especially in that beautiful sunset. Awesome blog by the way, so keep it up.
ReplyDeleteHonestly i don't know if even seen a blue jay , I have seen some blue birds but they don't look like the ones on the photo's you took. Most birds are a bit curious and will peck at stuff, have you noticed this with these birds too?
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