During a long three year recovery from spinal surgery and Encephalitis, Blue came into my life. I was outside my parent’s house when crows attacked a nest. They took the babies and ate them. Blue fell at my foot. He was fresh out of the egg, a day old at most. I called every animal rescue service, they told me to let him die. The parents abandoned him. I decided to rescue him. It was only because of a friendly man on the Internet who knew all about these birds that I was able to nurse him to an adult. He ate every half hour for about three months. I had to bring him everywhere I went in box until he became old enough to sit on my shoulder.
Blue saved my life. At the time I found him, I was at my lowest point of my life. I decided if I could keep the little fellow alive, I could do the same for myself. Lucky for me, it worked.
Blue is 8 years of age now. He has been very lucky too. Until recently, he never had any health problems. He is now blind in one eye from a cataract. Other then that he is in perfect health.
Early on, I discovered his strange sunbathing trance. Real sunlight is important to the health of all birds. I do not completely understand why he drops his head and seems to be almost asleep, falling over.
Later Blue began doing his dance when one day I wiggled my fingers in front of him. The video in the post below documents this behavior. The video shows both the sunbathing trance and his dance and song. Sometimes, I catch him softly singing to himself. The trill he learned from the phone.
Blue is out of his cage most of the day and can go nearly anywhere with me. He needs allot of affection and care. I do not condone caging wild animals for fun. If your going to try and do this, make sure its for the right reasons. I promised I would give Blue the best life I could, and I think I have.
Just a half a mile from where I found Blue is a large protected National Forest, Nicene Marks. There are many Scrub Jays and other birds there. I like to take Blue into the woods and let him hang out on a tree or play around in the stream. He loves it. Still, he is unafraid of other animals so I have to extra careful when around other peoples pets or in the woods. Blue will hand a peanut to another Scrub Jay we call Mama Bird. She visits each morning. She will land on me and I feed her nuts. My girlfriend Kate, who has developed a very close bond with Blue, has gotten Blue to give a peanut to the wild jay! We have many Stellar Jays here, and although they are bigger and tend to be in packs, Mama Bird can scare away any Stellar Jay.
I will videoing there interaction next, if I'm lucky.
