Seeing Our World from a Different Perspective: The Emotional Life of Blue Jays

Sometimes, we forget to see the world from a different perspective. We assume that everybody sees and thinks about things the same way we do. We form opinions and get very emotional about them. However, just because our opinions are important to ourselves doesn't mean that they are more important than those of others. I realized this truth in a dramatic moment as I was resting in my parent's backyard on a fine summer afternoon in my teenage years.

Without warning, a pair of blue wings swooped down from above and immediately, a beak pecked me in the head. Before I knew what had happened, the bird responsible for this had flown away.

"How odd!" I thought. Then, a couple of minutes later, the same thing happened again. At this point, I became alarmed, and I retreated into the house.

I told my mother and father what had happened, and they went outside so that we could see if the bird was still out there. Then, as we were looking up at the trees, the blue jay swooped down again and pecked my dad in the head.

I have since learned that this type of bird, a Blue Jay, is a territorial bird. Consequently, if its territory is invaded by another creature - whether purposely or not - the Blue Jay will usually try to defend it.

Since we had never faced this sort of problem before, we didn't know what to do.

I suggested that maybe we could use my old BB gun, to try to scare it off. Uneasily, my dad gave me his permission to go and get the gun.

I brought it back to him, and he accepted it from me, to aim at the bird up in the trees. The bird was agitated at that moment, and was fluttering around from tree to tree because it wasn't happy that we were trespassing on its territory. As we looked closer, we realized that there were actually two blue jays in the trees.

My dad shot a BB up near one of them, hoping to scare it away. That didn't work. The bird fluttered anxiously from one tree to the next. My dad shot again. His strategy still didn't work. The bird was not fazed.

So, with some misgiving, my dad finally aimed the gun at the wing of the bird. He shot the BB, and suddenly everything fell into confusion. One bird flew down, landing on our fence, and the bird that had been struck flew skyward, faraway, out of sight.

We were concerned.

We walked over to see about the bird that had landed on the fence. It sat perched at eye-level on the fence. We walked close to it, but it wouldn't move. We somehow thought that it would just flutter away as we approached. It didn't. It sat still. For a moment, we wondered if it was dead, but then we noticed that its eyes blinked.

We marveled at its stillness. It didn't move a muscle. We were so close to it that we could have grabbed it and held it in our hands. It voluntarily became defenseless to whatever harm might be caused to it. (Recall, we had just been shooting BBs at it.) We felt sad for it. We wished for nothing more at this moment than to cheer up this sad bird.

We stood in front of it for about 10 minutes, wishing we could solve its problems.

Then, suddenly, over our heads we heard a flutter. We looked up to see that the other bird had returned. Thankfully, the bird on the fence became alive again. It chirped and flapped its wings, as its partner flew up beside it.

Rapidly reaching an agreement, they flew away together with a beautiful flourish.

We were gladdened to see them together again, and even more gladdened to see them alive.

Fortunately, this issue was settled without any loss of life. Plus, no one was seriously injured by being pecked in the eye by one of the birds.
But all of this worry could have been avoided if only we had known how to see things from a different perspective from the start. You see, it turns out that Blue Jays go about their business with a particular perspective on the world they inhabit. Whenever they see a reflection of themselves, they will think it's another bird, and they will fly away, thinking that the other bird has already claimed the same territory. So, if you hang an aluminum pie pan from a tree with a string, it will ward off the birds.

It seems like a silly solution, but it works due to the special way this bird perceives the world.

So, if we just take the time to look at the world a little differently, it can save us and others a good deal of senseless grief.