By the time you read this column, the 2026-2027 school year will already be underway. The first few days of school are just meant for the teachers; the students will arrive later. It is one of those annual events that can cause tremendous feelings of excitement, anxiety, hope and fear. What the students will feel, I have no idea.
I have spent the past two months trying my best to charge up my batteries, trying to fill my spare tanks with as much happiness, calm and joy as I possibly can. For me, this means spending the maximum amount of time outside, and regular readers will already know about my favorite destination for nature bathing — my Thinking Chair.
It has been and interesting and rewarding summer down in the meadow and I have been working on a small project focused on establishing a relationship with a family group of blue jays. Amongst the ever-growing list materials that I bring down to the Thinking Chair is one item that has played an important role in my project. Can you guess what that might be? Camera? No. Pen and paper? No. The answer (obviously) is a pocket full of peanuts.
My Thinking Chair uniform consists of an old pair of khaki pants, an old blue T-shirt and a relatively new “field shirt,” complete with epaulettes on the shoulders and a place to attach a badge. It is quite similar to the shirt I wore when I worked as a ranger for the National Park Service, but this one is actually nicer. It has oversized zipper pockets just underneath the breast pockets, and into the right-hand pocket, I can pour a quart of peanuts in the shell.
The adult blue jays seemed to remember me from last autumn, and in no time at all, I had a couple of “friendly” blue jays that would sit and patiently wait for a treat. I established the saying, “Okay, Jay,” right before I tossed out a peanut, and they very quickly got the hang of it. Now comes the big question: Did I train the blue jays to come for food, or did the blue jays train me to give them food?
Well, it wasn’t long before the adult blue jays started to be accompanied by their very young, fledgling offspring. These baby birds generated the same sort of hysterical and hilarious insanity that you might find in your local supermarket. Just imagine the toddler that is “helping” with the shopping by climbing up the shelves, filling the cart with random and unwanted items, or simply crawling onto the cargo rack under the cart and then yelling, “Go!”
At first, the baby birds were a whirlwind of nonsense, frantically following their parents around, but then sitting and waiting to be fed. All they could do was follow and frazzle their parents. Then, after a couple of weeks, the babies shifted into elementary-school mode. They learned to pick up peanuts for themselves, but didn’t really seem to understand what they were doing or why they were doing it. Then, after a month had gone by, the young jays shifted into high-school mode. They were starting to put the pieces together, and they relied less and less on their parents.
Now, I don’t know if you remember going to high school, but it can be a time fraught with all sorts of drama. Teenagers can be afflicted with all sorts of insecurities, but near the top of that long list, you would certainly find the entry for “personal appearance.” Is my hair right? Are my clothes okay? How is my complexion? That last one can be a horrendous item on the list of conditions to endure as we shift from children to adults. It can cause a lot of insecurity and embarrassment, but it is interesting to know that it is not something that solely afflicts human children.
I have watched the family of blue jays all summer long, and I have watched the babies grow in confidence, flying skill and general understanding of the world. Then, just last week, I saw the baby jays go through their own awkward “ugly duckling” phase. All of the “baby feathers” on their heads started to fall out all at once. And so, for the entire week, I would laugh at how cute they were while also cringing a little on their behalf. What a disaster!
All of the babies from this one family started to look like porcupines. Their heads were completely exposed, and you could see just how spindly their necks actually are and how huge their ears are (at least how huge their ear holes are). The “spikes” on their heads are actually the new feathers that are growing in length and still covered by a protective “cuticle” of tissue that will dry out, become brittle, and then break apart, finally allowing the feathers to unfurl.
The growth of birds is astounding, and they go from helpless infants to full-blown adults in just a matter of months. Thus, this awkward phase will be over in another week or two, but it will not be forgotten. These darling little creatures will grow up, disperse across the landscape, and take their places amongst the various flocks that will form for the winter. How many will return next year for peanuts? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 29 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more information visit www.speakingofnature.com, Speaking of Nature on Facebook, or the Speaking of Nature Podcast.