Blue Jays and Cats

Blue jays and cats will never get along.  Cats just don’t care for blue jays, and blue jays seem destined to play tricks on the cats.

Early one morning a cat began a climb on the trunk of a tree near our house.  The tree had leafed for the spring…and it was curious as to why that cat was climbing that tree. It was a very young cat, so may be this was some sort of training mission to learn all about climbing in trees.

Sure enough, this young cat had its eye on a blue jay that was calmly sitting on a lower limb.  Of course, the blue jay was ignoring the cat.  Sleuthing was also on the training mission for that cat.  It was very obvious the bird knew exactly where that cat was headed, but being young and inexperienced, the cat continued to sneak.  As the cat crept along the branch with the blue jay, the bird simply hopped to a higher branch.  The cat watched this, and raced back the trunk of the tree, and scurried up to the branch and the bird.  Again, stealth was one of the training issues. The cat kept its belly closed to the limb and reached out far with each step, sneaking up on the bird.  Of course the bird knew along the cat was there and again, hopped up a couple of branches.  The cat continued to pursue.

This went on for several branches. You and I (and the blue jay) know the higher you go in a tree, the weaker the branches become.  Well, the young cat had not yet learned this lesson.  So, high up in the tree went the blue jay to a really weak and shaky limb.  To make matters worse, the blue jay was joined with several friends.  The limb moved precariously up and down…and up and down.

The cat was not to be denied!  The youngster began that slow crawl out to the end of the limb where the blue jays were perched. As the cat came within striking distance of the closest bird, they all flew away at once.  Of course, with the weight of the birds leaving the tree, the limb whipped up and down.  The cat quickly recovered from the shock of the moving limb, and was hanging upside down on a tree limb several feet off the ground. A fall by the cat at this height would certainly be injurious if not fatal.

The quarry was long gone. The youngster now faced a difficult maneuver to right itself, and then figure out how to safely come down the tree.  After several harrowing trials, the cat finally made it safely back to the ground where an older and much wiser cat lay stretched out lazing in the leaves.  There is no way to tell if a conversation took place, but the younger cat scampered to a nearby bush and set to rest.

Sure enough, a curious blue jay came hopping down the tree limbs, and eventually landed on the ground just a little too close to the old wizened cat. A flurry of activity took place, and there were feathers left at the scene of the crime as the old cat trotted off with a prize.

The younger cat saw all of this and learned a lesson.  Never saw that cat climb a tree again, but we did see that cat lounging underneath the trees quite often.