Clarkston Blue Jay again

[John Morgan <jmorgan480 at comcast dot net>]

The Blue Jay has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. 
Trouble is, they don't live here so I've watched with particular interest 
as these Clarkston reports have come in. To date, I'd never seen one in 
the wild.

First, I suffer from "I'm too busy to bird seriously" syndrome. For some 
reason, I needed a shove. Kristin Purdy "Siren of Birding" gave me that 
shove this past Thursday. I'll quote her:

'Maybe a visit to Clarkston would make a nice weekend drive for you and 
Carma.  I bet she'd be interested in going up there considering her 
collaboration on the medicine cabinet!" (Medicine cabinet was custom made 
in the shape of a birdhouse, and Carma (my wife)  tole-painted a Blue Jay 
on it for me).

All things fell together this weekend so we decided to make it an 
overnight trip to Logan. What fun. We arrived today in Clarkston at about 
10 a.m. I mistook the main road going through town as "Main Street", so I 
knocked on a door or two (and met some nice people) before I was directed 
two blocks further west to Main Street. Read street signs? Ha. Ask 
directions? No problem.

Anyway, I rang the doorbell of Tom Gordon at 211 S Main. What a nice guy. 
He told me the Jays had just been there 10 minutes previous but that they 
dropped in randomly throughout the day. We chatted a bit about the types 
of birds he sees there, then I sat down to wait. Oddly, today was the 
opener of the Pheasant hunt. Made me smile as I thought of many years of 
memories gone by. Today, I sat there with my binoculars in one hand, 
camera in the other, doing an entirely different type of hunting.

Nuthatches-a-plenty visited the feeder as I sat there at the corner of the 
front of his house. Zip in, steal a sunflower seed, then zip back up to 
the safety of a neighboring tree was their method. Next, a Steller's Jay 
made a visit. Tom came out...."Did you see that Steller's Jay!? That's the 
first one I've ever seen here!" Wow, a momentous day was beginning to take 
shape. I'd seen many, but was still amused by it. Tom was thrilled to have 
seen it there.

Across the street to the north, my eye caught some movement. A 
Sharp-shinned Hawk was being chased by a Magpie! Unfluttered, but annoyed, 
the Sharpie pulled all kinds of manuevers and the Magpie stayed in chase 
for what seemed a long time. That Magpie had Attitude!

Twenty minutes passed. The Steller's Jay made several appearances. Tom 
came out again as if to encourage me. "Listen for the Blue Jays. They make 
a sound like a Crow on steroids and you can usually tell when they're in 
the area. Minutes later in a tall fir tree about 1/3 block north, I began 
to notice some squaking. A gritty sound like a Red-tailed Hawk's cry 
mingled with a Crow's. Finally, a Jay-like bird flew out of that tree and 
headed towards me. Quick on the binocs, I noticed the black stripe across 
the breast.....Showtime was about to begin!

The Blue Jay landed in the top of the leafless tree in Tom's front yard 
and carefully worked its way down to the Lilac near the feeders. What a 
treat to see an actual Blue Jay! The Steller's returned as if to guard his 
feeders from the Blue Jay. Mostly it just followed the Blue Jay around.

The Blue was grand...impressive. I sat in awe. I noticed the black band 
went all the way up to the backside of the crest on the head. Interesting! 
Coloration was splendid. Though I sat in the open on the railroad tie 
corner near the front of his house, the Jay didn't seem bothered by me. I 
snapped somewhere around 30 photos and caught a few looks through the 
binoculars. Amazing. This Blue Jay was the same size as the Steller's Jay. 
I'd seen one at Hogle Zoo that seemed much smaller. The Blue Jay enjoyed 
its fill of the Sunflower seeds, then waved goodbye and took off back to 
the Northeast to the large fir.

Tom came out and we both reveled in the experience. Tom had been a 
technical writer at USU for many years. I currently work at SLCC so we had 
some experiences to share. A great day.

Clarkston is not like I remembered it. What a quaintly beautiful little 
town. It's nestled close to the mountains on the western side of Cache 
Valley nearly like Cedar Fort is to the Oquirrh's, except the mountain 
west of Clarkston has some sizeable conifer forest covering. Tom mentioned 
the "cross-over" habitat zone there in Clarkston and recited the many 
birds he'd seen over the years.

I've been too lazy to create my own webpage (fairly new to comcast) so if 
you'd like to see some of the Blue Jay pics, email me privately. Most of 
the photos were shot as the Jay was in the feeder. I've also got a couple 
of him in the tree. My Nikon D70's lens is the 35-135mm so I had to shoot 
in high-res, then crop and sharpen slightly. The images look quite good, 
but not as good as if I had a better lens.

Great birding today! I owe it to Kristin Purdy, and others who 
discovered/reported the Blue Jay. Thanks to all! Saw 2 Red-Tailed Hawks 
and an American Kestrel between Clarkston and Newton. Other than those 
seen, you'd think the Hawk population had gone South for the winter.

John

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