My Favorite Birds

Blue Jays, Part 1: Ludwig!

(The radio version of this is in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

If you’d asked me at any point between 1975, when I started birding, and, say, late 2004 what my two favorite birds were, I’d have instantly answered Black-capped Chickadees and Blue Jays. For several of those years, Blue Jays were Number One. What put them on top for me, even above my beloved chickadees?

When I was four or five years old, my Grandpa gave me the “Little Golden Activity Book,” Bird Stamps. I of course wanted to see every one of the 18 birds in it, but the only ones I’d seen in real life were the Robin, Cardinal, and House Sparrow. Of the remaining 15, I was most obsessed with the Blue Jay. It was the first one on the cover, had a jaunty crest, and was beautifully patterned with black, white, and a few different shades of blue. Mystifyingly, the first sentence about it said that it “can be easily seen and heard.” I sure wasn’t seeing or hearing any!

Then when I was six or seven, my family went to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for a week-long vacation, and one morning, voilà! There was a Blue Jay in all its splendor, even prettier than the book showed! I was thrilled. For many years, I was certain that Lake Geneva must be True Wilderness—Blue Jays lived there!

This belief was reinforced by the fact that I never saw another Blue Jay during my childhood. I didn’t see another until March 23, 1975, when one showed up in Lansing, Michigan, in a stand of trees and then at a backyard feeder not far from our apartment. It was #14 on my life list.

It’s funny how utterly oblivious we can be to our surroundings—after I started birding, the first time we went to Russ’s parents’ house, just a few blocks from the house where I grew up, there were Blue Jays right there! They obviously had to have been in my part of the neighborhood, too, and the same with chickadees, but I never once noticed them growing up. Russ’s parents lived in the neighborhood for just a few years more before they retired up to Port Wing, Wisconsin, but yep—Blue Jays, chickadees, and lots of other birds I’d never noticed as a kid had been there all along! But I digress.

Now that Blue Jays were suddenly part of my everyday life, I grew increasingly fond of them, but, as is often the case with me, it took an intimate acquaintance with one individual Blue Jay to permanently embed the species in my heart.

In 1979, I was birding with my friend Ken Wood in a Madison park when we came upon a newly fledged Blue Jay quite literally playing on the playground slide. He’d hop up to the bottom and then flutter as hard as he could to work his way up the smooth, slippery slope. He never got even halfway up before gravity took over; he’d make a quick about-face and flap his little wings as hard as he could, sliding down to the bottom; he’d stay aloft for a second or two before dropping to the dirt below. Then he’d start up the slide all over again. It was both charming and hilarious. We came close so Ken could take a few photos before we left.

At home, I started feeling uneasy. Ken and I had both seen adult Blue Jays flying over carrying food—they clearly had a nest nearby. And this little fledgling was very conspicuous, but the adults never squawked at us or took any other defensive actions even when Ken was photographing the little one at close range.

So Russ and I went back to the park just in time to discover the tiny bird in the mouth of a golden retriever. Fortunately, this must have been a well-trained hunting dog because it held the little bird gently, and when I reached out to take it, the dog handed it right over! There were one or two drops of blood and a good supply of dog saliva on the little guy, but otherwise he seemed fine.

Meanwhile, those two adult jays flew over a few times, completely ignoring the situation, and the baby still didn’t make a sound. I wondered if his parents had abandoned him because he was so quiet. Most parent birds find and recognize their chicks in part by voice. One that didn’t make a peep when playing in a playground, or especially when trapped in the mouth of a dog, may have seemed defective from an adult Blue Jay’s perspective. But I’ll never know.

The moment that little bird’s eyes met mine, an electric spark surged through me. As captivating as baby Blue Jays are to my eyes, it turns out they’re even better at capturing my heart.

Riding home, the adorable little bird snuggled into my hands and looked at me with bright, trusting eyes. I was scared to death of screwing up, so the first thing I did when I got home was call a dear friend of mine, Malcolm McDonald, who worked at the National Wildlife Health Laboratory in Madison. I knew he’d raised a baby magpie many years before, and he turned out to be a treasure trove of valuable information about diet and care. He told me that taking care of a protected species was illegal, but the laws weren’t very well enforced back then (unlike nowadays!), and that he’d use his many connections with the DNR and USF&WS if anyone questioned me.

We hardly ever took photos back then—film and developing it were expensive. But Russ took two pictures of Ludwig.

The little Blue Jay never made a sound during the first three or four weeks I had him. I thought he must be deaf, so I named him Ludwig. (This is why I’ve always used male pronouns referring to him.)

I was a teacher, and still had two or three weeks of school before summer vacation. The first week, I brought Ludwig with me every day, carrying him in a shoebox on the bus. Noel Johnson, my wonderful bus driver, peeked in the shoe box every morning to say hi to the little bird, and several other passengers took an interest in him, too.

At first, I fed him every 15 minutes during daylight hours whether I was home, on the bus, or in the middle of a lesson. My fourth, fifth, and sixth graders were as charmed as I, meaning sixty more people were invested in Ludwig’s survival and well-being.

When Ludwig got more rambunctious and started flying, I had to leave him at home. Fortunately, by then he could feed himself.

On the last day of school, Ludwig proved beyond a doubt that, unlike Beethoven, he could hear perfectly well. I brought my desk stuff home, including my trusty orange bell from Russ’s and my Parker Brothers “Pit” game. During the school year I rang the bell whenever I wanted the kids to settle down.

When I set it on the dining room table, Ludwig looked curiously at it, so I pressed the button. It rang out loud and clear! Lugwig instantly cocked his head and then pushed the button with his beak, but his breast was touching the metal dome, dampening the sound. When he stepped back, I rang the bell again. His crest popped up and he hopped up to press the button again, but again the sound was dull. I showed him how it worked a few more times, but then Russ and I went to another room to watch TV.

Maybe 20 minutes or a half hour later, we heard a clear “Ding!” A few seconds later, we heard another “Ding!” and then a “Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” I went running in to see Ludwig hitting the button over and over as he hovered, wings beating furiously, above it, which was the only way the little guy could hit the push button without touching the dome. He seemed very pleased with himself.

Now that he’d achieved his goal, he was ready to move on. I kept the bell on the table that summer, and he rang it once or twice more, but in the same way that my grandson Walter has outgrown his Fisher-Price little people toys, Ludwig outgrew that bell.

There are no evolutionary advantages whatsoever conferred on a bird for mastering bell ringing, but curiosity, keen observational skills, figuring out cause and effect, and tenaciousness are excellent qualities for an opportunistic omnivore, be it a Blue Jay or a human being. The longer and more closely I observed Ludwig, the more I grew to understand that Blue Jays exemplify the very best of what an intelligent, sociable species can be.

This is not Ludwig, but hungry baby Blue Jays are SO adorable!

Ludwig thrived. But being raised by a human instead of within a Blue Jay family meant his education was different from that of a normal Blue Jay. The first time he took a bath in the kitchen sink, he soaked himself so thoroughly that each flight feather became a sodden, stringy, heavy mess. He hopped up to the edge of the sink with no problem, but when he tried to fly across the room to the table, he dropped to the floor like a rock. I picked him up on my finger and he stayed put while preening to dry off. Even with me patting him with paper towels, it took half an hour to restore his feathers to flying condition.

I learned that there was no way I’d qualify for state and federal permits to keep Ludwig permanently, so as soon as he started to take short flights, I started taking him outdoors to help him learn some of the skills he’d need to become independent. I was terrified the first time I set him in the branches of a bush—what if he flew off and I never saw him again? How would he survive? I realized that parent birds easily keep track of their fledglings and can reach them even in the highest trees, but I was a mere human. Fortunately, fledglings also keep track of their parents; the first week or so, Ludwig never strayed far from me.

For the first few days, when I couldn’t stay out with him, he’d happily come inside with me. As he got more independent, especially after he discovered mulberries in the back of the yard and delectable fruits further afield in the neighborhood, he’d spend minutes, and then hours, on his own.

A family of Blue Jays lived somewhere near us, and whenever Ludwig found himself on their territory, the adults would chase him off, sometimes following him a ways. He quickly discovered that they were afraid of me. Now when I was outside, he’d occasionally taunt them, getting them to chase him into our yard; he’d alight on my head and turn to face them as if saying, “My mom’s bigger than your mom!” As their own babies grew more independent, the adults grew tolerant of Ludwig.

In the evening or when rain was imminent, I’d call for him from the yard. Once I noticed my neighbor staring at me, making me feel like Samantha on the show “Bewitched,” when she’d call, “Mother! Mother!” into the bushes with Gladys Kravitz staring at her. Calling “Ludwig! Ludwig!” seemed even more bizarre.

Sometimes I couldn’t wait for him and went inside. When he was ready to come in, he’d look through our basement apartment windows until he saw us; then he’d peck at the glass to catch our attention.

By this time, he also was also starting, at long last, to make Blue Jay vocalizations. Now when he wanted my attention, he’d make a squawk that sounded like “Ma! Ma!” which I of course found both hilarious and endearing.

Late one afternoon, a huge storm blew in while Ludwig was outside. As ominously dark clouds built up, I searched for him and called, but he didn’t come. This was the kind of rainstorm that starts out with a huge cloudburst, so I gave up and went inside. Every lightning bolt and blast of thunder made me more anxious.

When the rain finally stopped, I ran out and called for Ludwig. I couldn’t find him in my own yard or nearby, so I hopped on my bike and started riding through the neighborhood, calling his name. Finally, a few blocks away, I found him sitting on a telephone line directly above a bus stop, feathers so plastered against his body that he didn’t look anything like a Blue Jay—just a gray, sodden mass squawking “Ma! Ma!” A dozen or so people were waiting for the bus as I pulled my bike to a stop. That was back when I still clung to a shred of a sense of dignity, and I felt my face grow hot as I called, “C’mon down, Ludwig!” He dropped like a rock, fortunately onto the slim strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. He hopped up to me yelling, “Ma! Ma!” as the people stared and laughed.

Thanks to this spunky little Blue Jay, what was left of my sense of dignity was fading away. That internal radar system so desperately focused on any sign of disapproval or ridicule makes it hard for many people to follow their own lights; we can get so wrapped up in self-consciousness that we forget that absurdities are part of everybody’s life. We need to outgrow that to become our genuine selves which, intriguingly, means to become more like Blue Jays. That was one of the important lessons I took from those magical days with Ludwig.

One morning when pouring out my Rice Krispies, out of the box came a little “prize”—a bright red rubber-band-powered propeller. I wound it up and the propeller glided off through the dining room. For a few seconds, Ludwig was spellbound as it floated through the air; suddenly he took off and grabbed it in midair. I called, and he brought it to me.

That’s how we learned to play a fun game of fetch. It was even more fun in the backyard without walls or ceiling to get in the way. Over and over I’d shoot it up and he’d race after it and bring it back. One time it landed on our apartment building’s roof. He flew up to retrieve it, but the moment he landed on the hot roof tiles, he keeled over on his side. His crest went up, one wing and his tail spread out, his beak opened, and he froze. I thought he was having a seizure.

I called but he didn’t move. In a panic, I rushed to the basement where our landlord kept a ladder, lugged it out, and climbed up to the roof, not even thinking about how scared I am of heights as I rushed toward him. But as my hand reached out to grasp him, he shook his head, stood up, grabbed the propeller, and flew onto my shoulder as if nothing had happened.

I called Malcolm about that, and he laughed, explaining about how birds sunbathe, especially on hot, sunny days. This innate behavior raises the temperature of a bird’s skin and feathers, probably helping to banish some parasites. I’d read about that in my ornithology text books, but was still shocked to see it in real life. I really thought Ludwig was dying.

This chickadee is sunbathing on my neighbor’s shed. They really do look like they’re dying, don’t they?

Ludwig kept his collection of toys—some shiny buttons, a rubber band, that Rice Krispies propeller, and an old ring—in a ceramic cup. Now and then he’d take out his treasures one by one, arranging them in a line, and then put them all back into the cup. Once in a while, he’d fly off with one and hide it somewhere. Once he wedged a button in the crevice between the dining room window frame and the sash, and we had to work the button out with a knife before we could open the window.

One day I gave Ludwig a few sunflower seeds. He tucked them away with his other toys, not realizing they were food. A day or two later, I bit one open and ate the seed in front of him, then cracked open another and gave him the seed. He was thrilled! Years later, when we gave our toddler Joey his first Starburst candy, he especially loved the colorful wrapper, calling it “present candy.” That reminded me of how Ludwig loved sunflower seeds as much for the packaging as for the seed within.

Ludwig was very curious about insects, and became adept at catching flies. He put a couple in his cup until he figured out that they were edible--then he just swallowed them as he caught them.

But the instant he first grabbed an ant in his beak, his crest popped up and he spit it out, violently shaking his head with what looked like revulsion, apparently reacting to the formic acid taste. But within half a minute or so, he picked up the ant again, ran his tongue back and forth on it, spit it out again, and cocked his head. Then he grabbed the ant, leaned over to one side and spread the opposite wing, and rubbed the ant on the feathers. The taste of the ant seemed to release this behavior. By the time he switched sides, the ant body was pretty mangled. He didn’t eat it—he just left it on the table for me to clean up.

Of course, I immediately called Malcolm, wondering if this was the “anting” behavior I’d read about in ornithology. Yep. Malcolm said that this was “active anting,” and that Blue Jays also engage in “passive anting,” sitting on an ant hill in the same position they do when sunning, allowing the ants to crawl all over their skin and feathers. Either way, some of the formic acid coating the ants’ bodies ends up on the Blue Jay’s feathers and skin, probably acting as an insect repellent.

By summer’s end, Ludwig was spending most nights outside somewhere—I’d see him just once or twice a day and he no longer wanted to come indoors. The last day I saw him was the last day of summer vacation. Through that fall and winter, whenever I saw a Blue Jay, I wondered if it could be Ludwig.

The next year, when Russ and I were in Chicago during spring vacation, a warm breeze floated into Madison. Our next-door neighbor was out sunning herself when she spotted a Blue Jay alight on each of our apartment windows, peeking in and tapping on the glass. He landed on her lawn chair and studied her a bit, and then tried our windows once more, and finally flew off.

I felt so sad when she told me I’d missed him, but so joyful to learn that he’d survived the winter. Ludwig had a whole rich life ahead of him. Five decades later, I still feel a quiet joy knowing that even as he was leading his life as a proper Blue Jay should, he’d kept in his mind a little memory of me.

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