Listening to the jays

Home for lunch today, I enjoyed the view of our back yard from the dining room table. The back yard was the number-one selling point for our new house: it's lush and a little wild and goes on forever.

Well ... it goes on for several hundred yards, anyhow. Tam and I haven't put up bird feeders yet, but we have been on the lookout for wildlife. After a week at the new place I was beginning to feel a bit cheated; not much to report.

Last weekend we transplanted a couple of fat Canyon Springs toads. Canyon Springs is the name of an apartment complex, not the species. Yesterday I saw a young toad hopping across the yard from the direction of the creek, which is dry again.

Several days before, I had noted the web of a spiny orb weaver strung between two cedar trees near the back gate. These curious little critters are my favorites among the arachnids. They have shells with spiky points arrayed around the perimeters.

Typically the shells are white with black polka-dots. This one featured a yellow carapace with black dots and red spikes.

Today, as I was enjoying the view, a blue jay flew to a low oak and began shrilling an alarm. Soon he was joined by another jay, and another. Pretty soon there were four jays and a cardinal, making a racket.

Usually, blue jays gathered and cussing means something evil (by their lights) is afoot, or more properly, a-slither. I walked outside to see what it might be, but could see nothing unusual on the ground.

The birds scattered at my approach, but quickly flew back into the yard, perched in a different tree, eyeing the ground and making a fuss. I looked up in time to see a VLS making its way toward our thick cover of English ivy beneath the trees on one side of the yard.

When I say Very Large Snake, I mean a four-footer. Big for our backyard. I only got a fleeting glance -- definitely a colubrid (it had that friendly, innocent face), but thick-bodied with a light pattern on a dark background. My first thought was -- because of its size -- "bullsnake!"

My next thought, because it was shiny (not dull or rough like a bullsnake) was: "kingsnake!"I didn't get a good look, and it could have been any of a half dozen or more native non-venomous snakes.

I beat the bushes for about 10 minutes, but it was gone or successfully hidden. As I walked back to the porch -- actually a covered deck -- I noticed, peaking from beneath the trim, the dinstinctive, bright orange dorsal stripe of a Texas garter snake. I made a quick grab for the tail, but the snake was too fast and crawled deeper beneath the porch.

I'm cheered by these encounters with backyard wildlife, and I'll be on the lookout for more. In fact, I might even snip a couple of holes in the wire fence between our property and the greenbelt, just to see what quadrapeds might wander through.

And, for sure, I'll be listening to what the jays have to say.