What's up Peeps!!
DISCLAMER: MORE BAD WORDS
I know, I know, I said just the one post and that I wouldn't go full backyard birdies either, I'm a bit wishy washy sometimes on that stuff. This Blue Jay tho, he's just too much. I gotta but we'll get to that in a bit. Here it is 5 am and I've been tossing and turning since 11 pm while randomly getting up for a smoke, I might as well make good use of this laying awake and start writing a post. Often it's too many weird things twirling around my head and I have to get some out.
Well I was trying to sleep yesterday too with no avail and as soon as sun came up, I fell asleep...ring ring ring...Damit...what now. Screw it, I didn't bother answering. I generally get a bunch of scam calls like everyone else or random personal information about the previous owner of my phone number. She's lucky I'm not that creepy because I know way more about her and her children's life than I should.
Bad enough that I was able to use that information to contact her about it to let her know that she should really update her contacts with those people, business and her kid's school and doctor appointments. When I say I could be really creepy, it really is that bad, I even get her banking information amongst other things. Yikes. We ended up bullshitting a little bit like bff's for a little while, then at the end of the convo she was like...wait a minute...How did you get my contact info to even tell me this?? That's a little creepy. No doubt chickita.
Turns out that was the odd occasion that it was actually for me...Ah well. Who cares, I don't like talking to people that much anyway. Turns out it was work and they want me to start a week early so now I have to rush to get to my drug test and get thru all the safety orientations and make sure all my safety tickets are up to date. Well actually, they wanted me to start tomorrow ... Calm down yo! I didn't even do my drug and alcohol test yet! I was hoping to get that 2 weeks because I have two messed up fingers (tissue injuries) from working with deaf dum-dums last job. Well they are not def, only to women voices.
Anyhow I might as well start early, it's a few quick G's more in my pocket than anticipated. Who am I to turn that down. It doesn't take me long to earn it given half of my weekly hours are paid overtime and double time because we just have to put in that many hours per week but it's still a lot of money to turn down so I'll just suck it up in the meantime. I don't like putting that many hours per week but I like the time off I can afford after.
I really wanted to go to the park and get different birdies, mostly ducks and geese, pelicans, cormorants and a blue heron if I'm lucky but it gets dark early these days and if I wake up at 3, by the time I'm showered and ready to go, the lighting is kinda dark and weird for photography. Maybe after I Do my A&D test tomorrow it will free up the rest of the weekend. I still have until monday. Nyways, I was trying to focus on doing all this online orientation videos and stuff but it's so dry and boring and have done them so many times it's hard to even pay attention anymore and easily distracted. Glad that we get paid to do it at home now rather than in a crowded classroom falling asleep. I get in less shit that way.
The life of a contractor, since I work for different companies and on different worksites all over the place, as in refinery services contractor, much of this mandatory training has to be done yearly as it expires but I actually have to do it multiple times a year, for each company providing the services and for each site since I'm just free floating like a mechanic hobo that I am. Double whammy on that one. Everywhere it's the same thing, the same rules, the same policies and all the bla bla bla. I know them by heart since I have done them all at least a dozen time each over the last 15+ years. It becomes redundant and a total eyeroll but it is what it is.
I can't say names and stuff, I probably already gave too much info as it is. I was on that site last year for a bullshit company that no longer exist. They were threatening us with lifetime bans if we quit because that company was so bad that they couldn't even find the manpower in the first place along with this site being a little scabby the last few years, lots try to avoid it if we can.
Long story short, I lost my shit on both the contracting company and the site one day, for multiple cumulative reasons, said fuck it, I call your bluff, picked up my gear and went out as fast as I got in for my last shift. hopefully it will be a better experience this year. Looks like I don't have a lifetime ban either...Good one A-holes, nice try. That contracting company was so bad they lost their contract on that site that job and went defunct soon after. They were that bad and turns out I just had self respect after all.
Fast forward back to yesterday I got up and did the usual peanut rounds in the yard, while my morning coffee was steeping, called back that number because I got an email stating to call back, (they really know how to get a hold of a person for people that don't know me) and started getting on that boring stuff so I don't have to sit there for 8 hours strait the day before my start date like I often do. I was thinking to myself, how can I fast track this? Why does it seem like a 30 minute video last 3 hours? That was only one of 6 of 4 orientations. BLAH. I was ready to claw my own eyeballs out already. Then I got distracted by a kerfuffle outside, ah good! Maybe it's time for a camera break, sounds like the Blue Jay is back...I know A.D.D galore!
So here I am instead of doing work stuff, I'm chasing backyard birds and writing another post about it. After my last post, I realized that many may not know much about that bird so I thought I would research some actual info about them. Since they are so common in North-America, I forgot that Hive is mostly everywhere else and probably doesn't have them. I never really researched much about them until yesterday...yes, while I was suppose to be trying to focus on work stuff. I did find out some interesting things about them. Some I already knew tho. We'll get into more details with a mix of facts and my own observation along with a pretend mental convo. I like to make them talk for fun but I'm probably not far off on my assumptions!
Most of the time, he doesn't advertise his crest (the fluffy peak thing on his head) but on occasion he does. I had to investigate and get an answer on that. Funny enough it matched the imaginary convo perfectly in the end...haha. Yes, a crest and a few yells started this whole thing. The distracting loudness was obviously my big blue buddy, being pretty vocal more than usual. I went outside with my camera but also ensuring the big King Kit-Ten wasn't being a jerk to him.
I saw his crest before, but today it was poofier, is he giving me a display showing off his plumage? As soon as I got outside, he was feeding from the feeder eating sunflower seeds like a normal bird, then he flew on to the fence, gave me a loud squawk, looked down at one of the posts looked back at me giving me another. Then he flew to the second post, same thing. Then the third post, the one closer to me and the house and did it again looking down at the fence post then staring up at me. I assumed he was trying to charm me for peanuts with his crest but his squawks were more like he was saying...Hey big weird looking house bird, where are my fucking peanuts? Why is this post empty? Do you mind doing something about this anytime soon? Why am I stuck eating sunflower seeds like a peasant? Calm down poof blue, I just filled it an hour ago, not my fault my peanuts bring all the birds to the yard before you get to them.
I grabbed a handful of peanuts and he flew into the bottom branch of the big tree and watched me refill all three posts, then he was happy, the crest went down, he stopped yelling at me and he went to chow town on his peanuts on his favorite post, conveniently for me, the one closest to the house where I can just sit and take photos with my 300mm lens without disturbing him from the ajar door. There is like 2 feeders with just peanuts in them yet, he likes that post the best. OMG picky birdie. That's why it's so easy for me to get many mazing close ups of a normally known to be skittish bird around humans.
After he left, I had to get down to that crest mystery and solve it once and for all. Turns out the crest goes up for multiple reasons, he feels threatened and warning others, anxious or angry/feeling aggressive. The poofier it is, the stronger the emotion felt. I don't think he feels threatened with my presence or the cat since he was just a few feet away watching me fill his loot without flying away and even ate it with his back turned to me. If they are unsure, they eat facing to keep an eye on what might be stressing him out. I think I was right with the made up convo after all!
Blue Jays are from the Corvidae family, in other words the same family as Crows and Ravens, I was today old when I found that out. Crows and Ravens are known for being the most intelligent of all the bird species and much like his cousins, the Blue Jay shares the same type of intelligence with complex social structures and an incredible memory. Well he's at least intelligent enough to know how to call me to come feed him at command. Maybe someday I can train him to eat out of my hand. I also learned that they are not actually blue...Wait...What? But...
Despite all the pictures showing their bright blue plumage and our eyes seeing them as such, it's actually nothing more than an optical illusion. They are brown, all brown. WTF. He has a chemical in his wings that absorbs all of the light spectrum except for blue and it reflects it back, much like the Blue Morpho aka Emperor butterfly along with the dull grey-ish silt at the bottom of those beautiful bright blue lakes in the Rockies. Nature can be such a mind trip if you take the time to learn about all the oddities and the why's of everything.
Taken a few years back from an exotic butterfly house, previously posted but to show you the optical illusion in action, and I think this butterfly is awesome with his unique features, All photos are from the exact same butterfly, the color seen depends light levels. In the shade, he appears brown.
This photo was taken at low light and you can see the brown where we normally think they are blue.
On top of their incredible memory, they can live anywhere from 7 to 17 years old with the oldest ever recorded in Eastern Canada at 26 years. Researchers put a band on him and tracked it from birth until they found him dead 26 years later, although that is a rare occurrence. Like I figured, it probably has been the same returning since the feeder has been installed and probably knows exactly who I am. Geese have an incredible memory like that too, the ones that know me tend to follow me all over the park when I visit them despite their migration. They always come back where they nest/were born and food is abundant. Much like the Geese, they are monogamous and once they loose their mating partner, they won't look for a new one.
They can have an average of 5 youngs per breeding pair per season. Peanuts are not their only feast, they like to eat eggs from smaller birds as well. The cow bird is a parasitic nester meaning they don't lay eggs in their own nest or take care of their own babies and tend to lay eggs in random nests then fly away, most birds foster them thinking it's just a funny looking bird of their own but not the Blue Jay!! They are one of the only species that can recognize it right away before it even hatches and will feast on it instead of trying to raise it. They actually welcome the parasite as free food deposited right to their front door, uber eats for birds! 😂
A display of a weird dance ritual they do with their buddies each taking turns taking a bow to each other , it's suppose to try to impress the ladies, but the ones that bring food to here have better chances.
Because of the parasitic nesting of cow birds, many of them don't reach maturity because the foster parents can't meet their requirements but they lay so many eggs that their population are not really affected. Cow birds like to feast of the back of Bison picking bugs and parasites along other bovines as their name suggest. Interesting to learn about the symbiotic relationship found in nature and how it all ties in together somehow into one cohesive interconnected story (at least more interesting than redundant orientation videos). The pictures of cowbirds were taken prior and may or may not have been posted to my ladybug account but the birdie on the bison is new, they just fit the story in images.
This is a Wood Bison from elk Island with a female cow bird on his back. These are the rarer bison, they don't hangout in the part of the park where visitors go. There is a separate section of the park for them and they are more wild and dangerous, also to prevent the two species from breeding together and further diluting the genetics of this species at risk. They mostly hide in the woods but on occasion they can be spotted true a fence on the side of the highway.
Alberta canola fields, another typical sight along our highways in the proper season.
The Jay's are funny to watch and so clever, a few years back, I was at a bird sanctuary and a squirrel was trying to build his winter hoard in his den and every time he walked away to get more food, the Jay would swoop in and steal it. Eventually the squirrel caught on and stayed in his den hiding and when the Jay came, he tried to attack him with no avail as the bird just flew away. Then the squirrel went back to stocking up his den and the bird went back to steal it. We watched that for like an hour. I can't say I have ever seen a squirrel more upset in all my life. I thought it was pretty entertaining and hilarious. Jay's have no shame if they can get a free meal out of it...haha, intelligent indeed.
You will probably be reading this in the afternoon since I really should try to go back to bed and get some sleep for now. I'll probably find something to add when I wake up but at least the words that were keeping me up as a post was brewing in my head are now out and the sun is about to come up, I should just be able to drift off now. Good thing I'm going to work nights, why bother trying to switch myself to a normal sleeping pattern now.
Astotin Lake Sunset, Elk Island National Park.
Well I guess you get it a few days late, it's now friday but I had a lack of sleep migraine plus got busy doing the actual work stuff! Better late than never! I had it all typed out for a few days, I just needed to attach the photos to it. The grafiti photos are more from my walk but there was too many o share in the post.
Mix bag of photos from different days, most are obviously newer, some are a year old but haven't posted them yet. Taken with Nikon Z6, birds with Nikor 70-300mm landscape with 18-55mm.
As always, thank you for your support...enjoy the very first days of official Fall! xox