Stepping through a narrow gap between dense holly bushes, I glimpse the softly rounded shoulders of a jay, its neck almost rufous in the sunshine, the warmth draining from the colour as my eye travelled down its back.
I can never wholly adjust to the contradictions of this corvid’s physical appearance. Where does the eye rest? Its black moustache, the complex pattern of dots and dashes on its white forehead – like Morse code – are contrast enough with the body, but the startling azure coverts are the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen, like scales on some rare tropical fish. Any day I find one of these jewels on the ground is a good one.
The jay’s appearance has fixed its place in the English imagination; a crow in motley. Simon Armitage, in The Jay Poem, had those dazzling coverts as the “blue lapels” of a “buff-brown coat”. Yet admiration for the jay rarely includes its call, that grating screech that most usually announces the shy jay’s presence and provides its name in Welsh: ysgrech y coed, shrieker of the woods. They are also great mimics, copying predators’ alarm calls to frighten them off.
Last autumn, I’d watched a group of six or seven of them squabbling noisily, filling the woods with a raucous anxiety. One bird swooped towards another and stood on a branch chattering at it, sending that bird to the next on a neighbouring oak. When I passed by later, the birds had settled their differences and the aggression was dissipated; in its aftermath, they were chuntering to each other warmly.
This one isn’t shrieking though, or chasing off a predator, or arguing with the neighbours. It’s producing a soft, throaty purr, its head tilted towards me, its liquid, purplish eye scanning the threat while showing no hint of alarm. I can’t tell whether it’s content or relieved, but wonder again at the rich emotional lives of these shrewd birds, and their vocal complexities.
Twitter: @calmandfearless
