Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

Since I started producing “For the Birds” in 1986, I’ve always called any month with a blue moon “National Blue Jay Awareness Month.” Last month qualified because there were two full moons, but between all the preparations and travel involved in giving talks at birding events in Ohio and Wisconsin, and then my daughter’s stem-cell harvest at the Mayo, National Blue Jay Awareness Month entirely slipped my mind. This month, I’ve inadvertently been making up for lost time because I decided to focus on my “Top Ten” list, and the Blue Jay has, for half a century, always held the #1 or #2 position. I’m especially fond of them because they are so deeply embedded into my family life going all the way back to when my children were little.

While my not-quite-one-year-old daughter Katie still had a one-word vocabulary, “mama,” and was just starting to pull herself up to stand, she gravitated to the picture window in our living room—that windowsill was exactly the right height for her to grab. Meanwhile, a pair of Blue Jays had figured out that I was giving peanuts to some tame squirrels on the front porch, right outside that picture window. The squirrels usually ate the peanuts right away but sometimes buried one or two. As soon as a squirrel tucked a peanut somewhere and ran off, one of the Blue Jays would drop down, dig out the peanut, and fly away.

When I noticed this, I started leaving peanuts out on the flat porch railing, and soon the birds started skipping the middleman. At first they wouldn’t fly to the porch until I went inside, but one day the braver member of the pair started flying in and grabbing the peanut if I stepped far enough back from the railing. By the time the more timid jay started coming in while I was still on the porch, the braver jay was taking the peanuts out of my hand as long as I held very still with my arm stretched out as far from my face as possible. The second jay never felt comfortable with that; to entice that one to the porch, I had to step way back from the railing, and if I made any unexpected movement, that jay hightailed it back to the safety of the maple tree. One time I sneezed right as it alighted on the porch railing and it flew off, not returning for several days.

My little Katie loved watching these big colorful birds at close range, so when I asked her if she wanted to see the Blue Jays she’d crawl straight to the living room window, saying “Boo Jay!” When my first book came out in 1994, I scraped up the $100 for a personalized license plate memorializing Katie’s second word. That was a one-time expense; 32 years later, my license plate still reads BOOJAY. And now that Minnesota lets you personalize the critical habitat license plate, ours pays tribute to both Black-capped Chickadees and Blue Jays. Imagine being able to honor my top two birds on the same license plate!

I never had much of a relationship with either of my parents as an adult, but I definitely lucked out in the in-law department. When Russ’s parents retired to Port Wing, Wisconsin, in 1980, they immediately set up a feeding station, and my father-in-law took an instant dislike to Blue Jays. When a Blue Jay flies to a feeder, other birds instantly scatter, probably for the same reason that beginning birders at Hawk Ridge mistake Blue Jays for Sharp-shinned Hawks—in silhouette, both species have rounded wings and a long tail. And Blue Jays sometimes yell out a warning as if a predator was about; when the birds at the feeder scatter, in come the jays. But they’re not really bullies at feeders—once they settle down to eat, the jays are as peaceable as most other birds. You can tell they have their aggression turned down when their crests are down.

My father-in-law and I ragged each other endlessly about Blue Jays, me calling them “Nature’s Perfect Birds” and him saying how much he hated them. On his birthday in August 1987, I started “For the Birds” talking about how wonderful Blue Jays are but said how even whispering their name would ruin his birthday, so I better talk about Bald Eagles instead—he got a big kick out of that. That Christmas, Russ and I made a poster with a large picture of a Blue Jay with a red circle/slash, saying “Port Wing Blue Jay Haters. Ellwood Erickson, President,” which he loved so much he immediately hung it in a place of honor in the hallway.

Blue Jays figured even more prominently in Erickson family life after I started rehabbing. The most memorable experiences for my kids and Russ happened the summer some Hermantown people brought me four very young nestling Blue Jays after their nest tree crashed to the ground in a thunderstorm. I’ll save those stories for next time.