All right, it’s time for me
to continue announcing the
awards for exceptional service
by our domestic staff at
Stone Mill Acres. You’ll remember
that the first went
to Anne for tactfully banishing
a slug from the a
dinner salad, and the second
to Blue for gallantly
defending his buddy Simon
the cat from an affable,
overweight corgi.
The third award goes to
Simon himself for extraordinary
bravery under fire.
Before I can describe the
event, I’ll have to do some
scene-setting.
You already know that
Simon, successor to the late
Owen of such happy memory,
is a young cat, only coming
up on his second birthday.
And you know that,
unlike the taciturn Owen,
Simon never stops talking.
If he’s out near the barn
and you call him, he vocalizes
all the way to the
house. Inside, he follows
around any human at hand
and comments on everything
the person does. Other
times, alone upstairs or
down, he will sit, meowing
about anything that comes
into his head.
With that said, however,
he’s a great little cat and, it
turns out, a game one, too.
This was demonstrated last
week when, to reestablish
some temporary quiet in
the house, Anne urged Simon
out the back door.
Urged him out, as it happened,
right into a scene of
familial panic and tragedy.
Perhaps you like blue
jays. I don’t. Granted,
they’re handsome birds,
beautiful in flight and even
while preening on a limb.
But they’re coarse, unprincipled
birds, too, given to
robbing other birds’ nests
and shouting vulgarities at
every passing human.
I suspect their coarse
edginess mars their domestic
life, too. When a female
lays an egg or two, she and
her mate are good parents,
protecting their own nest
with the same energy with
which they despoil others’.
They both feed the gaping
mouths that greet them on
every return with food.
(Perhaps it’s my bias, but
while other baby birds chirp
prettily at that moment,
young jays are as demanding
and ungrateful as any
sullen teenager.)
When the moment comes
literally to launch their
young from the nest, I wonder
if strife develops between
the parent jays.
I can imagine a cawing
argument between them,
ending with the father booting
the baby out and into
the air. Most times, the moment
is right, and the baby
revs its engine, spreads
stubby wings, and flies into
life to follow the family tradition
of spreading mayhem.
But it doesn’t always
work that way. Sometimes
the bird is launched too
soon and drops to the
ground like an overripe apple.
And sometimes, I imagine,
the irascible baby won’t
wait, and launches itself to
the same effect. Once the
fledgling is on the ground,
there’s nothing the parents
can do but fly around in
panic, shouting accusations
at each other.
There is no chance of
survival is such a case. At
worst, the baby bird will
die slowly of hunger and
thirst. At best, some other
creature will quickly bring
things to term. Tragic,
maybe; but such dramas go
on constantly all around us.
Nature is ``red in tooth and
claw,’’ and we can only accept
the grim fact. Or,
translated into Disneyese,
we must honor the Great
Circle of Life.
Well, enter Simon, just
emerging from the back
door. He spotted the stranded
jay, instinctively knew
his part, and undertook it
at once.
If there had been wild
screeching before, imagine
what broke out then overhead.
As Simon tried to
carry out his assigned role,
the sky was rent with
screams, fierce caws, horrific
threats. The cat retreated
under the peonies,
lugging the still form with
him. But then he emerged
to face, not only a torrent of
abuse from above, but strafing
by the two birds.
Simon flattened himself
into the grass, ears back,
trying to reduce himself to
two dimensions and turn
into a kind of cat carpet.
But the birds, bent on revenge,
swooped lower and
lower, finally whacking the
back of his head with their
claws. The cat’s no fool. As
the jays climbed and
wheeled for another bombing
run, he scooted under
the peonies again, presumably
to complete the job
that Nature had meant him
to do.
I’m not sure why Simon
first came out from under
that bush — whether it was
bravery or foolhardiness;
but either way I was impressed
by the way he held
his ground, flat as a flounder,
lashing his tail. And I
certainly don’t fault him for
retreating again under the
bush. That was simple prudence
and quite apt. He’d
made his gesture, after all,
and didnÆt need to be suicidal
about it. That’s why I
am awarding him special
recognition for courage under
fire.
Simon has not, however,
forgotten that day. As often
as he comes out the back
door, he pauses to scan the
branches of the basswood
tree. They could be up
there, you see, still ready to
wreak vengeance.
Oh, my! I haven’t left
room to tell you about the
fourth award, the one to
me. We’ll have to wait till
next week to find out what
it is. I wonder, what it will
be?
Read about Jim Atwell’s
book, From Fly Creek--Celebrating
Life in Leatherstocking
Country at JimAtwell.
com.
