On my strolls around our neighborhood here in scenic Ladysmith, I love to hear the lively calls of my winged friends, even the Steller’s Jays. They descend upon us in autumn to plunder bird feeders, sporting their electric blue plumage and bold, black crests, and rapid-firing their machine-gun-like notes through the still, morning air.
These tricksters make it challenging for us photographers to capture them on the ground. When I first started photographing my jay neighbors, as soon as they spotted me, they would hop up into a tall tree and zigzag up to the top, where they would then take flight before I even had a chance to lock onto one of their eyes.
But one mid-afternoon in late October this year, while I was following the varied thrushes and robins to berry-laden trees, I happened to spot a mischievous jay flicking leaf litter below his fellow foragers. I think he must have recognized me because he let me take quite a few photos of him before he decided to move on to the next front yard. This is one of my favorite images, as you can see a leaf suspended next to my feisty friend, giving me a little smile.
