Category: Garden

My neighbors: The bluejays

2/12/2026

Squirrely started it. Or was it Pattze? Another chicken or the egg situation of taking two to tango. It doesn't matter much to point a finger; this story is about the bluejays anyways. Pattze was leaving nuts and other snacks out for these critters. Jay saw Squirrely getting snacks and wanted in on the action. He joined the peanut party and his partner Blue soon followed. It didn't take long for these backyard neighbors to think of me as another part of the yard, like a fixture. They'd probably been watching me doing yoga and exercising on the back porch for years and I never noticed. I like to think that doing something like yoga, slow, calm, meditative made me seem all the more friendly and inviting. So do peanuts. Trust is built through shared food. What they likely saw was that I had a stash of peanuts in my pocket or on my mat, and they saw how the game was played. We often think we're not a part of nature. These animals are watching our every move, and they are everywhere. If we don't stop to pay attention, we can miss them. If we do slow down a bit, we can start a conversation with those around us. Sit still, observe, tend to the plants and be loving with your pets, drink your drink out there, read a book, draw or color, have dinner, be calm. And carry some treats!

At first, I would bring a few peanuts out with me in my pocket or on my mat. Squirrely got closer and closer over time, until she began reaching right into my pocket. Jay quickly took notice and followed suit. He's a little more cautious maybe skeptical, but quite vocal and demanding. Boundary lines are so interesting, invisible yet meaningful. Variable. Moveable. Over time, shrinking. Ten feet. Five feet. Two feet. Inches from my extended hand. This was a difficult step, and I needed to look the other direction. Eye contact is threatening and birds are prey animals, which tend to have eyes on the side of their heads. One eye finds food while the other keeps a lookout, like birds, horses, fish and squirrels. Predators have eyes at the front of their face to better focus in on the prey, like humans, bears, wolves, foxes, owls and hawks. When approaching a prey animal, it sometimes helps to go at them with a side eye. This is hard to do. I feel like that gopher from the old memes. It makes them feel more comfortable. Using this trick, I was able to get Jay to grab the peanut from my open palm. I have better luck when I just completely look the other way. Pro tip: don't look away with squirrels. They might take your finger instead! Better tip: There are no pros, just idiots like me. Don't hand feed wild animals. You will get scratched and bit.

This idea of becoming closer to the neighbors started when I went to Santa Barbara. I took a walk with my nephew, and we ran into a woman who fed her neighbor scrub jays by hand. She simply held up a peanut and the jay swooped down and grabbed it. I was so excited, we run home to tell everyone. Immediately my mom went outside and began throwing salted peanuts at some jay in the yard. That went nowhere quick, as did the tiny peanut thrown by an old cocktailing woman. It was quite hilarious though!

I haven't kept up with the hand feeding due to jays nesting, winter, and aggressive tweaker-like squirrels who also learned the game, chasing me and jumping at my door like we were in a horror movie. Trust waned slightly (for all of us), but the familiarity is still there. I always know when Jay is near, I did mention he was vocal. He screams '"Jay, Jay, Jay", announcing his presence and calling me to run out with nuts. He never comes to the other windows to find me like my other neighbors do. His voice, my attentive ear and desire to please is all he needs. His partner Blue is a lot quieter. I honestly don't know who the male or female is, their feathers look so similar. My eyes are not trained on the details yet. I'm working on that through photos and sketching. It's a slow learning process. For now, I go off of behavior and decided the louder, more aggressive and sure bird is the male, Jay. The more quiet and reserved bird is the female, Blue. This year, Blue had some feathers on her shoulder come in funny after her late summer molt, so I have a little cheat for now. Blue sits patiently, a little more distant, a lot less demanding. She murmurs a quiet song but still gets plenty of peanuts. I try to make it fair, and they aren't incredibly greedy or quick to eat them. Sometimes they fly off with the one and hiding it away somewhere for later.

I watched as one did this once. I said to myself out loud, "Well, that was a shitty job of hiding a nut", only to walk directly over there and not be able to find it myself. They're tricksters and quite cunning. They might pretend to hide it if someone else is watching, but it could've also been like when I'd watch the dog poop, go in to get a bag or shovel, and then spend five minutes searching the area. Their memory and spatial awareness are very good, unlike mine. Like the squirrels, they can remember where they hid their nuts and find them later, when food is scarcer. And we think humans are the only animals with the skill of foresight and have these wonderfully advanced brains.

Blue Jays have often been labeled as bullies. After watching them, I might disagree. Sure, their large size and demeanor make them intimidating. Their smarts and loud voices can make them seem dominant and they are coercive with their mimicry of other birds. Ok, sure, that's most of the definition of bullying. But are they seeking to cause harm? I have yet to see a blue jay cause harm. With my eyes. Rumor has it they eat other birds' eggs. Ok, maybe they're bullies. I've seen grackles fly off with a bird in their mouth while all the sparrows squawked and the house finches stared in disbelief, but they aren't related. Blue jays are more closely related to crows, ravens and magpies than they are to grackles. All very smart birds and quite tricky. Maybe they hide the evil side from me. Innocent til proven guilty?

Molting Bluejay getting some much needed protein to help grow new feathers.

This winter Blue and Jay invited a new pair of jays over. These two don't have names yet. They also haven't quite grasped how the dance works. I always knew there were more in the neighborhood, but it's so hard to tell. They come and go so quickly and get lost in the tree line and go past my view. About a month ago I heard Jay explaining the deal. They were hesitant but got a few nuts. They've started venturing over by themselves occasionally. Today they came by with Blue. One was noisy. Neither one knows to follow my hand, look at me, or the peanut. I threw a few out and they didn't follow; kind of like our old dog Barley, who never learned to play catch. This time I didn't throw a nut at their faces and have it bounce of their foreheads! Maybe they'll catch on in time. So will I. I'll keep observing them and learning more each day. They will too.

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Passionflower

1/14/2026

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Such a showy flower, yet somehow, you’re not over the top even as you grow over the top of my bathroom window. I thought you might make it up to the bedroom, but even you have limits. Hard to believe from the way you’ve taken over the south side of my house. Almost. I wish you’d take over more of it, like the trellis, but I haven’t yet been able to convince you of that. I’m working on it. It’s amazing how much you grow; how much material you create from soil and sunlight in just a few months. Even with peppermint trying to steal the show and taking some of the nutrients you need. Or blocking the sunlight. You come up a lot later in the season, but you power through that minty mess.

I originally planted you in another spot. I had visions of an arched arbor, covered with passionflower, creating a dreamy entrance to our back yard. Good thing we didn’t build that for you. You had different plans. Or did I guide you away from that plan? I don’t remember now. I tend to do that; dig up a plant and move it somewhere else. Maybe it was a little of both of us.
You’ve been around for 14 years or so. Who can keep track anymore, and why bother counting? My partner and I don’t have an anniversary because it just doesn’t matter. You don’t stray too far, though there is an adventurous side of you.

You found your way out of the bed’s borders under large pavers, to the fence on the other side of the walkway. It’s not a great spot. You get walked on and mowed down. You’re too far from the fence to reach it safely. Yet you insist. One day I might make that a bed and you can form a nice privacy screen. And then you can grow into the neighbor’s yard and, maybe we need to practice a little more control. Boundaries. Good fences make good neighbors? Instead, I’ll continue to gently guide you to where I feel you should be, as I’ve tried before. Sometimes you listen. You have a mind of your own, but I feel like we’ve been able to work together to find what makes us both happy. You thrive with a little guidance, like a teenager. You may not want it, you may insist on doing your own thing, but we all grow with some help. Don’t we? No matter what the age. Help is hard to get, or maybe hard to receive as we get older.

Your location feels like a war zone at times. War isn’t the right word. You all seem to get along, strawberries, mint, lemon balm and asters, chickweed and crocus all competing for the same territory. You’ve got your different seasons, different layers. You all have your time to shine and find your space. The occasional other weed comes in, the clematis or a rogue garlic. I step in and help. Others move over voluntarily in search of better nutrients. I do my part to give all of you the space you need, you take what you need. l offer compost as fertilizer. I don’t water you much. You don’t seem to need it!

There’s more of you than I could possibly use this year. We gave you makeshift trellises of metal shelves leaning against the house and water barrels. Much of what we do is makeshift. We use what we have, repurposing, experimenting, avoiding permanence. You’ll grab whatever you can find, like the siding or windows. You’ve grown into the siding, weaving under and through. Twice now you’ve grown into my bathroom window screen, ripped it, pulled it down and continued on your way to my ceiling. I shove you back outside. You’re not particular; if you can grab it, you grab it! Last year’s ropes were not quite enough. They were limiting. Or was it the drought? You’re so tolerant of drought, but once again, everyone has their edge.

You bring me a smile when you first pop out of the ground. It starts with anticipation, worry, anxiety. You don’t come up early, you wait for warmer weather, testing my patience. Since your second year with us, I’ve been convinced every May that you aren’t coming back; that I did something to damage you, like moving you, or digging a giant hole to replace sewer line. In the end, you never disappoint!

The bees love you. All kinds of bees, small and fat. They get drunk off your pollen. They dance around your large flowers, the pistil being a Maypole. They limbo under your anthers, leaving yellow dust all over their backs. I enjoyed your fresh flowers this year. I made them into tea. Of course I saved some for the bees. There’s enough of you to go around! The flower tea tasted green, like green beans. Fresh. I felt calm. I’m relatively calm, but I felt even more calm through a season which I set up for anxiety. Stress created and brought on by me. It’s often me creating my own stress, my own spinning thoughts and wound-up circular mind. Do the bees circle your petals as if walking a labyrinth? Walking in circles to ease the mind. Spinning, to stop the mind from doing so.

Your flowers slow and fade come mid-September, shifting energy into fruits which fall in October. I never harvested your fruit before. I’m familiar with your cousin, Passiflora edulis. I thought you would ripen the same. It took years and a conversation with friends to learn that you don’t ripen purple! A basket of your fruit now sits on my table, waiting for the right dimples to form. The juiciness comes with more patience and is shown by those dimples I’ll make a syrup with you. A syrup for my cocktails. Maybe for some ice cream. Maybe a glaze for pork, or a bread pudding. Usually cocktails. I used too much sugar this try.

You fell in a summer storm one year. That storm took down a lot, trees, electricity, our business (temporarily), our sanity. You’re safe from the north winds of winter, but only your skeleton will remain. You don’t like colder weather and shorter days. Your leaves begin to yellow. I leave you there as shelter for birds, insects and any other small bodies that can still use you. Praying mantises love hanging out in there. Egg sacks stay all winter. I harvested enough leaves during summer to keep myself calm during winter into late spring, when you rise again.

They call you passionflower not because you’re an aphrodisiac. I beg to differ. You’ve helped me fall in love with purple, my garden, scents. You covered my bathroom window. A perfect screen to keep out the summer heat and peeping Toms. Your scent wafted in and filled the house with dusty, floral, powdery magic. Just sweet enough and just musky enough for my middle-aged nose. A perfect middle note. Not too light, not too bouncy, not too heavy. Balanced. You’ve made me fall in love with fresh herb tinctures. It feels more like summer, moist, warm, free, not harsh. You were my first subject to get back into sketching, drawing, art besides photography. A muse perhaps.

These are my first sketches in years. Thank you, passionflower! 💜💚

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My neighbors: The bluejays

Passionflower

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