Blue jays have been swooping and screeching and carrying on in my side yard all day. Here’s a pair perched in the banana tree:
They have a nasty reputation, blue jays, but they’re lovely birds.
So glad today is Friday. This week has felt eternal. Got any big plans for the weekend?
I was thinking of joining the protests in Orlando outside Der Gropenfürher’s not-at-all-weirdly-fascist “rally” on Saturday. But some folks who don’t seem overly alarmist or kooky are warning that it might very well be a trap, that Trumpian goons might try to cause trouble to put the resistance in a bad light.
Honestly, I have no idea if that’s true or not. But it’s a good excuse to skip a dreadful trip on I-4 to Orlando and instead fulfill a long-standing ambition to ride the Beer Bus Brewery Tour all over Tampa with my sister.
Open thread!
No Drought No More
Blue jays are the rowdy teenagers of the bird world…
Another Scott
Blue Jays are indeed pretty birds. Nice shot!
I didn’t realize they were (kinda closely) related to crows until I saw Steller’s Jays around Banff. Seeing that made the family a little clearer. ;-)
Plans? Starting yard work and stuff before Spring springs too much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Peale
Trap or no trap, protesters or none, the protesters will be put in a bad light. Even those who aren’t there.
ET
I have always had a fondness for the blue jay – likely because my grandfather did and they are lovely birds. The feather pattern just proves nature has style.
Major Major Major Major
I’ll be in the air on my way to Iceland during his Nuremberg rally. We’ll see if I decide to come back.
frosty
Plans for the weekend — continuing our Snowbird Road Trip. Sanibel Island tomorrow, then on to Big Pine Key for a few days, complete w/ a day trip to Key West which I haven’t seen since I was 5. Then back up the Atlantic coast on the way home. And back to work, ugh.
NotMax
Just because it’s sweet.
Blue Jay trailer.
kindness
With all due respect Betty some of us are hoping for that comet to hit Orlando tomorrow.
Out here in the flatlands of California the Blue Jays don’t have the crowns they do up in the Sierras.
Patricia Kayden
@Peale: So might as well join the protesters if you can. Trump needs to be opposed every single day of his presidency. Holding rallies because you’re a narcissist and need constant approval is not normal. I hope protesters show up at his rally and interrupt his lovefest.
SiubhanDuinne
Why did I think the rally was going to be in Melbourne? Either way, I heard similar things about the protests, Betty, so I think you’ve made the right decision this time. Sadly, there’ll be plenty of protest opportunities in the coming months.
Shell
Jays don’t seem to be strictly regional. They’re all over the country.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Rallies ahoy! Looks like Trump needed a little tongue bath from his base. (Ick, felt a little ill after typing that line) Will Trump need periodic infusions during the next four years?
trollhattan
@kindness:
Yup, in the flats and foothills are scrub jays and the much flashier (and bold) Stellers jays in the mountains. Thieves, those Stellers.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
Yep — crows, jays and ravens are all in the Corvidae family. I’ve seen a few Steller’s Jays in the CA mountains and they’re pretty cool looking.
And I don’t have the link handy, but Mark Twain’s blue jay story captures the birds quite well. You could tell he’d spent a lot of time observing them.
debbie
They’re kind of screechy things, but I love the color of blue jays.
Feebog
Raining cats, dogs and dinosaurs in SoCal right now. Just going to hunker down and wait out the storm, which is expected to go on for another 24 hours.
hilts
Betty,
Your thread title comes from one of my favorite poems which gave me an irresistible urge to post it in full here. Thanks for giving me something joyous with which to start the weekend as well as that beautiful photo of blue jays!
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
h/t The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe http://www.bartleby.com/106/5.html
raven
The Mexican eatery across town closed yesterday and put a sign on the door about a Day Without Immigrants. The showed up this morning to find all kinds of nasty shit plus a swastika on the sign so there is a rally in their support this evening.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne: Steller’s jays are common around here. hit my birdfeeder every day.
Did Trump really just tweet that the press are enemies of the US and then illegally delete it? Is there any reason why the presidential records act doesn’t cover twitter?
Major Major Major Major
@Shell:
Duh.
Mnemosyne
Also, a mere 24 days until my Disneyworld trip. Now I’m starting to ponder bringing some lip stain with me so I don’t look horrible in the thousands of pictures we’re going to take.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: But don’t you dare call them deplorable or racist.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
I was sitting outside and working on some knitting up near Big Bear a few years ago and I swear that a couple of jays up in the tree were gossiping about me, trying to figure out what I was doing.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: Punk ass frat boys is what I call em right now.
pamelabrown53
HAH! I think you’re spot on. I don’t think we need a counter protest for Trump’s hop, skip and jump to the “Winter White House” Let’s just see how many crazies show. Then we can obtain a clearer picture of who is still Trump crazy. Since his “Rally” is in a tiny airport hangar, I say we just friggin’ ignore him.
donnah
Trump’s rally tomorrow is a campaign fundraiser for 2020. He’s empowered by his enormous successes so far as president and is certain he’s going to have a second term. He will also thrive on a new surge of admiration from his adoring fans.
*vomits*
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
“I’m not a racist!”
“Then why did you draw a swastika on a Mexican restaurant?”
“To prove that I’m not a racist even though you think I am!”
@raven:
The rally is a really good idea. It’s the best way to show the cowardly assholes who did that that they’re in the minority in your neighborhood.
scav
@trollhattan: I do love Stellars. Sometimes living elsewhere after growing up in the CA mountains is rather like wandering into a childrens illustrated book that insists on moving. Oak trees with big wiggly leaves? No Way, Oaks have little waxy leaves! All. The. Time. And those skinny blue things with white stripes? Hardly noisy enough.
(I’ve become bilingual in oak- and wildlife appreciation, but every so often, it hits.)
Kenneth Kohl
Heading over to sister-in-law’s in a few minutes. Widowed brother-in-law (lives in Boston MA) is in town for the weekend. Saturday heading over to ‘other’ BIL/SIL for family Valentine’s dinner. My three BIL’s (wife’s bros) are all Trumpers, so it should be interesting. Yes, blue jays are absolutely beautiful and they are rambunctious.
? Martin
Blue Jay was our school mascot. Lovely applied to us a lot more than nasty. We were not exactly feared.
trollhattan
@donnah:
He’s perfecting Palin’s shtick, which is frightening on many levels.
Emerald
@donnah:
Yeppers. He’s already filed as a candidate, so the campaign is already on!
Which means that according to the new Mitch McConnell rules, the Senate cannot consider any new SCOTUS nominees until the 2020 campaign is over, as somebody over on the GOS said yesterday.
Storm just starting to come into Oceanside. Hope it does damage to some of Darryl Issa’s many properties here.
Emerald
@trollhattan:
Be nice if he imitated Palin’s exit strategy sometime soon.
rikyrah
Extremists killed 372 in US, 2007-2016:
74% by right-wing extremists
24% by Islamic extremists
2% by left-wing extr.https://t.co/kLTnP5DxgK
— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) February 17, 2017
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty safe assumption they were. :-)
jacy
Those are some handsome jays!
The Boyfriend and I are slated to attend Baton Rouge on Tap at the River Center. $30 buys you a glass and all the craft beer you can taste from over 50 vendors in a three hour span.
I’m torn, because The Boyfriend and I are having a grand time when we do get time — but I’ll be kidless this weekend, and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to spend so much time without the boys. Forced part-time parenting sucks. I’m still waiting out the ex, and while he’s showing increased signs of cracking, he’s still determined to make the rest of us as miserable as he is.
rikyrah
1.If this is true there will be rebellion at the NSA/CIA. If they establish Saddam-like show trials government will descend into mayhem. https://t.co/LeUXwGFkNa
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) February 17, 2017
2. I hinted on @11thHour last night about Trump witch hunt by WH loyalists. This maybe major coverup for Russian Intelligence investigation.
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) February 17, 2017
rikyrah
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on MSNBC: Steve Bannon is “a stone cold racist and a white supremacist sympathizer”. pic.twitter.com/AGly3r4SYg
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 17, 2017
FlyingToaster
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s at the Melbourne/Orlando airport, not Orlando International.
Another Scott
@Mike J: Dunno. You mean this?
The original time stamp is 1:48 PM. I guess that’s PT?
FWIW.
Don’t let his Twitterings distract you from what his minions are doing. Eyes on the prize…
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Emerald:
If he’s still around in November instead of pardoning the Thanksgiving turkeys he’ll copy her slaughterhouse video as a warning to all who don’t love him bigly.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Sounds like a Catch-22. If protesters don’t go, Trump brags about how big his audience was and how small the protesters crowd was. If protesters show, they risk getting attacked by Trump’s Emo-Nazi Troopers, then having the resulting riot blamed on them.
My advice? If you want to go, go. Even if the chance of violence is more than negligible, it’s still less than likely. And it’s better to protest than to self-censor over rumors of threats.
Another Scott
@JGabriel:
Yup. Overthinking it isn’t necessary.
Even at protest that turn violent, the violence is usually confined to a small group. As long as you don’t get penned in (Situational Awareness!!), and you keep your wits about you (Avoid Young Men Dressed All in Black with Masks!!) you should be able to stay safe.
Cheers,
Scott.
JGabriel
via rikyrah:
Islamic extremists ARE right-wing extremists. They’re just Islamic right-wing extremists instead of Christian right-wing extremists.
efgoldman
We like the Jays (and the cardinals) because they don’t fly South, They provide a flash of color in the bleak New England winter.
Tracy Ratcliff
@hilts: My first exposure to the poem was Ian McKellen’s “Richard III” where it was done as a big band song. This is the version where McKellen did Richard as a 1930s fascist dictator, so is sadly appropriate.
JGabriel
@? Martin:
But you were famed for your charming manners?
david Margolies
Fun bird fact: blue jay feathers contain no blue pigment (I believe no bird feathers contain blue pigment). The blue color come from light interacting with the cellular structure. (Thus if you finely grind up the feathers, no blue, but grind red or yellow feathers, still red or yellow.) See http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-are-some-feathers-blue-100492890/
If you have a Jay feather, it will vary between blue and gray as you move it about.
laura
Welp, speaking of Melbourne, my brother caused an international incident the other night that is straight out of Spinal Tap.
Life imitating art imitating life.
Worse, he had 40 of his wife’s family and friends on the guest list. He ain’t never gonna live this down.
JGabriel
@laura:
Do tell. You have to give us more than that, Laura.
Mnemosyne
@laura:
Okay, you gotta give us more than that.
JGabriel
@Another Scott:
I’m also thinking that when the Republicans actually intend to incite violence, there probably won’t be any rumors beforehand – only the sudden unannounced implementation of violence on a peaceful, large, crowd.
If there are rumors of violence ahead of time, then it’s probably just an attempt to get potential protesters to avoid showing up.
opiejeanne
@kindness: In the San Bernardino mountains we have Stellar Jays. A large family of them entertain us at our cabin in Blue Jay when we’re there. They know our car and start calling each other and fussing at us to get the peanuts out right now.
patrick II
My favorite memory of blue jays involved two jays, one cat and two trees. The cat was between the trees and whichever tree it was facing, the blue jay from the tree behind him would swoop down and claw the cat’s back and swoop back to its original spot. When the cat turned around and started in the direction of the attacking jay the other jay, now behind the cat, would swoop down and do the same thing. They had the cat going back and forth for a few minutes before it gave up and went away. I assume the jay’ boldness was because they had a nest in one of those trees — but it was sure fun watching them work over that cat.
SiubhanDuinne
@hilts:
I love that poem, and I also enjoy The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd — by Sir Walter Raleigh.
PaulW
As an alternative to protesting Trump – indeed, my argument to NOT GO is that Trump wants even the protesters to show up so he’ll feel important: NOTHING HURTS HIM MORE THAN EMPTY SEATS AND VACANT STREETS! – I highly recommend the Bartow Main Street SyFy (i know it should be SCIFI) event tomorrow Feb. 18th from 11 am to 9 pm, with an open air showing of the Avengers on the Lawn around 7 pm or so.
Chuck Dixon will be at the downtown comic book store for signings.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlyingToaster:
Right. And that airport is in Melbourne, which is a good 60-70 miles from Orlando.
cope
I’m going to spend Saturday morning setting up to finally, hopefully get pics of the Space X launch. Even from where I am, my zoom lens SHOULD be good enough to get some decent shots but I have to be sure it’s pointed in the right direction. No school Monday so a 3 day weekend for me…WOO WOO.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, if anyone comes back as an escape from the Incessant Disaster, I saw Moonlight last night without knowing much about it and discovered it’s actually a really lovely romance (a gay romance, if anyone cares). One of those movies where you almost want to shout, “Just kiss him already!” and then they finally do. Highly recommended as a movie that has some very sad and traumatic things happen but is uplifting and hopeful at the end.
And I don’t remember seeing Andre Holland before, but … damn. So. Hot.
Peter H Desmond
Betty,
we have to pace ourselves with the rallies and protests. enjoy your day tour!
humboldtblue
Bluebirds have a nice coat and tails and even a little style but they aint Bower birds who have style class and that little bit of smoove
laura
@Mnemosyne: so my brothers are roadies.
Mike “McBob” does the band intros.
He had 40 family and friends of his Melbourne born wife.
I’ll try and add the link, but in introducing GnR says Hello Sydney . . . .
It’s all OVER the youtubes.
Steeplejack
@laura:
LOL. I saw that story on some page I went to!
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
The Blue Jays around here have top knots, like a woodpecker. I have seen western jays with heads like those in BC’s pictures. Out west in the Arizona high country, mostly, in the way south east corner at 7000 feet.
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
Florida and California both have scrub jays, which lack a crest. Ours our Western Scrub Jays, so theirs probably have a very creative name like “Eastern Scrub Jays.”