Family Outing-The Chipmunks Genuflect

The family of blue jays nesting in my black spruce tree have fledged.  They had a family gathering/life lessons on my deck.  Blue jays are so loud and a family of blue jays is even louder. The blue jay family in not like my family AT ALL.  I think blue jays have inflated egos. They act like they are kings of the forest. The youngsters look almost like adults but the lines of their colors are not quite as defined.  First the family took turns taking a bath in the bird bath.  They splashed about all the water out of the bath.  Kids need to learn how to clean themselves so bathing in a bird bath is a good lesson.  Next was a lesson on scarfing down left over canary bird seed that I put on the deck railing.  The birds take turns landing on the deck.  Some are more graceful landings than others.  Some seed is eaten but more is kicked off by their feet or brushed off with their heads and spread all over the deck.  Blue jays are not dainty polite feeders like the chickadees who take one seed at a time and fly away. Blue jays trash the dining room and leave food on the floor.  You want to ask, "Were you born in a barn?" but you know they hatched in the black spruce just outside your bedroom window.  One by one the blue jays taste canary food and fly off.  One young blue jay flies from the deck railing and BLAMMO! It slams into the window of the deck door leaving a feathery imprint on the glass.  Watch out for the house buddy.  It recovers itself before falling to the floor of the deck and flies off more successfully.  The entire blue jay family leaves the deck cawing wildly their status as kings of the forest.  One of the parents does an outstanding imitation of a red-shouldered hawk.  If I hadn't seem it calling I would have been sure a red shouldered hawk was right there.  Richard Little couldn't have topped that performance.  Blue jays are so smart, so talented, so full of themselves.  Maybe they are the kings of the forest.