The Truly Amazing Lyre Bird

Click through. This is both amazing and a little sad, toward the end.

- YouTube.com | Amazing! Bird sounds from the lyre bird - David Attenborough - BBC wildlife

His Rumbling Fury

The earthquake wasn't that big, just a 5.4, but it was a little bit scary. The only casualty at my house was this fetal sculpture that I fashioned out of clay from our yard when we first moved here.

Should I take it as a sign that God did not spare this little thing in his rumbling fury?

Richard Feynman on Doubt and Uncertainty

From BBC Science and Nature, Horizon:

Richard Feynman was one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists and original thinkers of the 20th century. He rebuilt the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and it was for this work that he won the Nobel Prize in 1965
In 1981, he gave Horizon a candid interview, talking about many things close to his heart.

Richard Feynman | The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Thanks, Conelrad.com!

A Sad End

The jays were going crazy this morning - a total cacophony. I went outside to check and counted at least a dozen of them near the shed screaming and screeching. I found this little pile of feathers near the compost and fear it was my wounded jay, the victim of a hawk or coyote.

It's amazing that so many scrub jays came from near and far to join together, though unsuccessfully, against a common enemy.

My take away is not to feed the jays on the ground. I usually leave their peanuts on our patio table. It has a large umbrella which conceals them from the hawks.

I had to feed my wounded jay on the ground, though, as she could not fly. I suppose her chances of survival were low, but I will miss her, if indeed this was her.

Wounded Scrub Jay | The Series

Wounded Scrub Jay
Scrub Update
The Scrub Jay Drama Continues

The Scrub Jay Drama Continues

Scrub jay with broken wing

For those of you who've been keeping up on my little backyard drama, here's the latest photo of my scrub jay with the broken wing. The bottom five or six longest feather finally came loose. The white area below her wing, shown here, should be covered with the missing blue feathers.

She's drinking from a little waterfall in our pond.

She looks much better, and can actually fly down pretty gently. She may never fly like a regular bird, but I think she's going to be all right.

Scrub Update

It's been a full week since my little western scrub jay was injured and she seems to be doing much better. She doesn't seem to be in pain. She's very agile and animated and hops everywhere - to the roof, to the top of the shed, the tops of trees, and up into the bamboo. She's letting me get about a foot and a half away from her.

Wounded Scrub Jay

A pair of scrub jays has been visiting our patio, and I've been obliging them with peanuts. As time passed they've become more used to me and now land on the table near me to retrieve their peanuts. Often they'll sit a few feet away and sing a whisper song. I love it when they do that.

At first I thought it was a purely economic relationship - they sing, I reward them with peanuts. Now, however, one of them will sit on the back of a chair in front of the window and screech at me until I come outside. Then he sings, and after grabs a peanut or two off the table. Our relationship is more complex than I first thought.

Taking advantage of this I worked for a few days to get them to eat out of my hand, which they did, begrudgingly. I hated to stress them and did not necessarily want them trusting other humans, so have since then kept my distance.

Six days ago, on Sunday, June 29, the female appeared on the steps of our patio dragging a wing. She looked traumatized. I could not tell if her wing was broken, and since then have surmised that she was bitten. There was a little bloody patch on her shoulder.

I crushed some peanuts for her, which she took, and then scampered off.

The next day she looked worse, would open her beak, but omit no sound. I tried to catch her but though she let me come within a foot of her, I could not catch her, and did not want to further stress her. I saw her try to drink out of a bamboo stump, so walked around the property making sure there were little oases of fresh water she could take in different places and by different means.

She did not seem happy to eat the pre-crushed peanuts, so now I just bruise the shells and give them to her whole.

That second day she hopped around the yard, it seemed, checking out her new ground level domain - looking for places to hide peanuts and perhaps, herself. She favored the lower branches of a large rosemary bush, the sagging leaves of a bird of paradise, and a huge thorn laden palm.

I looked online and found that if I could catch her, a wild bird rescue authority, or vet, might euthanize her. Another site wrote about a scrub jay with a broken wing that lives a happy life on the ground. I decided it wasn't worth the risk, and if my jay was going to die, she should die in the yard she loves, on her own terms. Besides, I don't think I could catch her if I tried.

Today is the sixth day since her injury. About 6:30am she started screeching for me. I found her under the bird of paradise and threw her some whole peanuts. She was very animated and quickly broke one open and ate her breakfast. If I walked away she squawked and I returned. At the very least my presence keeps the squirrels away and she can eat her breakfast without looking over her shoulder.

She now hops to the highest branches of the nearby trees and seems to have a routine. Other jays visit her, but at this point I think mostly to steal her peanuts.

I don't suppose I'll know if something happens to her and she dies, or even if she eventually begins to fly. I expect one day she won't be able to fly, and then the next day she will. Maybe she'll find a way to identify herself to me. Maybe not. I'm happy to be a part of her life for the time being.

She reminds me of the D.H. Lawrence poem, popularized in Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane and Denzel Washington's The Debaters:

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.