I must say, as far as days go, last week was pretty good. Although the rain finally arrived at the end of the week, I was able to get a number of good runs in on the trail – definitely enough to remind me just how hard the July 50K ultra is going to be (link here). If you recall, that is the race I missed last year due to shattering my elbow a mere week before I was supposed to toe the line. It’s redemption year and building the base early to leave nothing to chance. Then my brother Ron was able to come down thanks to an opportunity to attend TransWorld down in St. Louis. Horrible name, but before you jump to conclusions, it is the premier Professional Haunt Trade Convention/Expo in the States (link here). This is somewhat of an “invite only” event and you have to prove you are in the haunt business to be allowed to attend. AMAZING. To put it into perspective it took us 3.5 hours just to make it through maybe a 3rd (at best) of the exhibits. While I recover from the trail training and the miles of expo walking, going to let Brad take over and take you through another “stellar” experience.
Take it away Brad…
If you haven’t seen the majesty of Yosemite Falls when there’s water flowing, add it to your bucket list of future destinations right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
We had been planning a trip to Yosemite for years, but something else always came up and it slid down our list. Last fall we decided to team it with other destinations we wanted to see Out West to make sure we’d end up going.
Sidebar story: Normally the waterfalls (Bridal Veil and Yosemite) only run in the spring when there’s ample snowpack melting. The winter before Jan and I went, Yosemite received record snowfall, some say on par with what they used to receive way back a hundred years ago. Others said it was twice as much as usual. A few of the roads in the park didn’t even open until late May or early June. Even when we went in September, the upper mountain roads were just then opening.
Quite breathtaking. Hit the jump to learn more about the falls and a rather stellar resident.
Yosemite falls is spectacular when the water is running in the spring. Jan and I were very fortunate to be there while water was still running off-season. As we stepped outside of the lodge each morning, there it was. The water drops over 2,400 feet through two cascades from the peak to the rock scrabble only a couple hundred yards from our lodge door. When water falls that far it loses its laminarity, (the quality or degree of being laminar, or a consistent flow, like the first few feet from a garden hose in the summer) meaning it turns into a mist. Intrigued Legal requires that I put a disclaimer here: Please do NOT stand directly under a 2000-foot waterfall.
Again, back on topic. I can hear Brian through the screen, “Focus Brad, this is supposed to be about birds.” On one of the many hikes Jan and I took to the base of the waterfall, these blue wonders were all over the place.
Sort of like sparrows at home, the Steller’s Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) hops all over looking for food. They really don’t hold still all that long, so framing one is like taking photos of hummingbirds. Crank up the frame rate, ISO and shutter speed, and open up the aperture as wide as conditions allow, to hope to capture something usable.
At a glance when flying, the blue streak looks like a Mountain Bluebird. They do have a triangle of blue feathers on the front of their black heads. The rest of the bird, past the shoulders, is a bright blue. Coastal vs. inland birds have slightly different coloring. Steller’s Jays are a bit larger than the Bluebird, and much nosier.
As Jan and I were walking back from Lower Yosemite Falls, several people kept asking us what the squawking blue bird was. I suppose because we were carrying large cameras that we must also be experts on birds. Not yet, but we are working on it. We could hear either a repeated short squawk, or an elongated single squawk. The repeated squawks reminded me a little bit of a European Starling (scourge of my bird feeders during the winter). Jan and I say that it’s a Steller’s Jay, and 9 out of 10 times the other people would walk away saying Blue Jay while taking a photo with their smartphones. We politely corrected a few of them, but eventually gave up.
This Jay was one that Jan spotted in Kings Canyon not very far from the General Grant giant Sequoia tree. I think it was happy it found a nut all of the woodpeckers in the area missed that morning.
We saw Steller’s Jays every time we went into the mountains. They were all over the National Parks in California we visited this past summer. The photos from this story are from Yosemite and Kings Canyon. They didn’t seem to be wary of humans hiking and would be very near or just off trails.
The Blue Jay and the Steller’s Jay are the only New World Jays that use mud to build their nests. An excellent mimic with a large repertoire, Steller’s Jays can imitate other birds, squirrels, cats, dogs, chickens and some mechanical objects. We didn’t notice them imitating anything else, but any noise they may have made was drowned out by tourists taking selfies at the waterfalls.
During April the year before, Allyson, Jan and I were at Rocky Mountain National Park near Sprague Lake. After making appropriate relief stops after a long hike in the cold, Allyson came up to me and asked, “Padre, did you want to take a picture of that blue birdie over there?” I tried to look where she was pointing, but all I saw was mulch and shadows. Then one of the shadows moved.
Steller’s prefer conifer forests, which is where we always found them. Forests provide most of the food they like to eat: insects, seeds, berries, small animals including hatchlings. Around people they will pick through garbage, or an unguarded item on a picnic table. They also like to eat peanuts, sunflower seeds, acorns, or anything they can steal from other birds. Jays will store food in caches for lean times, and can remember where they hid the food.
A pair of Steller’s Jays will raise a single brood of 2-6 eggs in a season. Incubation and nesting are both about 16 days. Populations have been declining slightly since the late 1960’s, earning them a low concern for conservation at this point.
With proper food and shelter, a Steller’s Jay can live up to 16 years, but the average is a few years less than that.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Steller’s Jay photos, please visit here.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for most of the photos in this article.
Life Intrigued 