EARTH DAY: "THE BARNSTORMING BLUE JAY"

Today's late-April cold snap apparently has energized every bird inhabiting my woodland property. Watching from the window of my library at home, I grab my laptop to memorialize the scene:

It's as if there's music from an unseen orchestra with varied repertoire...

A robin hops frenetically, apparently not satisfied with any breakfast worm he comes across as he moves to his own private beat from buffet stop to buffet stop... skittering backward, forward, sideways, all around his grassy dance floor...

Sprightly chickadees are do-si-do-ing, square-dancing their hearts out in my small red maple trees...

Goldfinches are line-dancing carefully along the edges of a long planting box on my porch....

A cardinal is break-dancing his way alone across the branches of an evergreen...

A Carolina wren, always a jammin' little dancer anyway, must be hearing a beat much faster than he has ever heard before. He seemingly intends to keep up with the jive; my sleepy morning eyes can't stay in contact with his moves...

Downy woodpeckers are doing a modern up-speed version of the minuet on a leafless tree limb, stopping every now and then for an insect snack...

An exception to this avian activity taking place before my eyes this morning seems to be a big blue jay, perching coolly nearby on a tree, watching like a chaperon or reluctant wallflower.

But here he goes! He revs his wings, extends his head far forward and storms top-speed across my line of vision. A brilliant blue Speed Racer boldly navigating an unseen track in all that space above the ground, he is stealing the show from every other creature, looping and soaring as his spirit prompts him, changing altitudes and attitudes with great abandon, executing his maneuvers skillfully above my roof and over my lawns and through my trees... He's showing his stuff as brilliantly as any barnstorming stunt pilot of any era... Oh, Mister Blue Jay!

What's been going on here? A reaction to a weather front that's spitting snow into the plummeting springtime temperatures? A prequel to a day of courtship? A mass response to natural harmonic events that fall beneath the radar of our human senses? A spontaneous celebration of Earth Day?...

Whatever, Mister Aviator Blue Jay... R.A.T. (Rose Around Town) appreciates the privilege of having been your spectator, however briefly on this Earth Day 2009.