Personal essay by Mary Ellen O’Neill

THE BLUE JAYS ARE SCREAMING

I step out on an early May day to water the parched shrubs and plants that are growing valiantly with far less water than they need. There seems to be a lot of tiny brown songbird activity around the holly bushes. More numerous than usual, they flit frantically from holly bush to porch railing to a low hanging maple tree. I note their movements, but I proceed with my task, not stopping consider what the cause could be.

And then the blue jays begin to scream, loud, piercing, and to use a term more human, upset. My uncaffeinated brain is slow to make the connection, but there it is: their homes have been taken, likely their eggs or babies too.

For several hours the chainsaws have been whining far down the street. It must be a sizable tree removal job as the police have closed that section of the road to traffic. When the chainsaws came for their tree, the blue jays fled, calling out their loss to all who could hear, to all who could listen. And then I know that the little brown birds have lost their nests and babies too. Unlike the blue jays, they flew away quietly, but their devastation is the same.

The small individual loss of one breeding pair, two or three breeding pairs here and in your neighborhood, pile up. Alternative places for the birds to move to continue to shrink, bit by bit, everywhere.

My watering chore is complete. I go inside to a cup of coffee and respite from the crying birds.

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Photo by Taylor Gregory.

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