When parents talk about having a child who is ill or struggling, nonparents often take the wrong message. They think, Thank God I was spared all that pain. If I can’t order up the precise specifications for my child, the condition in which he emerges, the choices he’ll make, if I can’t be assured that he’ll skirt the dangers that await him, maybe it’s better not to have children at all.
Those of us who know the airless terror of the 10 steps between the second you first glimpse your child’s surgeon through the glass doors and the moment he’s standing in front of you, delivering the verdict—we don’t think this way. Each time one of ours is ill or in pain, we think, Thank God I am here for him.
Same thing with grey jays, sometimes known as whiskeyjacks. Which I think is an English corruption of Ouisakedjak in Ojibwa (not sure of either the spelling or the etymology) who was considered a mischievous, trouble-making spirit. Fits, doesn’t it?
Jim T
Jim – Yes, it does. Jays are too smart by half. Here’s a link to one take on the etymology (and spelling . . .).
I’ve never seen a red-winged blackbird do that, neat!
At Mud Lake some of the downy woodpeckers have learned from the chickadees and nuthatches there are good pickin’s in people’s hands. Also Mud Lake’s wild turkey last year would hand feed, but his table manners were atrocious and I quickly learned to just drop the seeds on the ground.
Only seen in a (undoctored) photo; a local well known birder with a cardinal sitting on his hand.
Then there are the select Florida sandhill cranes who will eat from an open hand….
Jim R – A cardinal? Where do I sign up for that? Ours take off when I move behind the living room window. As for sandhill cranes eating from an outstretched hand, I’ve seen that, too, also at the Reifel sanctuary. One just pecked (ouch!); the other turned its bill sideways and somehow hoovered up the bird seed.
Delightful!
Laurna – Yes, they were. Next time, I’ll take my own sunflower seeds.