Steller's Jays and Mourning Doves

Early Summer 2008
Each morning I usually awake to the sounds of the “Kak, Kak, Kak” of the Steller’s Jays and the “Coo, Coo, Cooo, Coo” of the Mourning Doves.  The jays have always been here, cocky and brilliant blue with those funny black mohawks on their heads.  They particularly like to steal the sunflower seeds and elderberries in the Fall - you see them hanging upside down on the flowers and branches with their mohawks wobbling as they eat.  

The doves are a recent arrival this year.  They hang out on the dusty dirt road during the day and clatter away as we drive up.  Their call is sadder, but reminiscent of the Wood Pigeons I used to hear as a child waking in my Grandmother’s house, Ffrwdgrech, in Wales.  It evokes in me a timeless sense of the comfort and peace of childhood - lying in bed on a summer morning with no reason to get up and the day expanding in front of me with no demands or schedules.  Wish that it could still be so!