We’ve all known forever that it’s a tough world out there beyond the back porch. We can’t keep cats around out here at Brownspur since the coyote population built up to the point that the wild canines run in packs regularly. Matter of fact, keeping beagles isn’t really an option either, unless you keep them penned up, and who wants to keep beagles penned up if you live in the country? The Labradors are big enough to fend for themselves, but the beagles are too small to stand up to a pack of coyotes, especially the miniature beagles we used to have.

Of course, the other side of the coin is that, since the coyotes have taken over, we don’t have the problem we used to with packs of wild dogs, which have no innate fear of man. At least coyotes aren’t a real threat to maul a person, far as I know. Watch now: having said that, someone will call to say their Aunt Lilly was eaten plumb up by a pack of coyotes last October in Goose Hollow.

Obviously, the food chain in the wild means that Brownspur bunny rabbits and field mice, as well as house cats away from the house, will be killed and eaten by larger predators like coyotes, the occasional wolf, foxes, bobcats, hawks, and owls. It’s the way the world works, ever since Adam & Eve ate the Apple. Man as a predator is also figured into that equation, though most Americans do most of their predatoring at the local grocery store. Truth be known, in modern America those of us who hunt for food are looked down upon especially by many city-dwellers as blood-thirsty Neanderthals who need sexual counseling.

We’ve gotten too far away from the last generation, when if you wanted fried chicken for Sunday dinner, Junior had to go catch a pullet, wring its neck, pick it, gut it, chop off the feet for later chicken-foot soup, and whack it up into recognizable parts for flouring and frying. Those were the days when the pulley-bone was the choice piece on the platter, and Momma would pick some lucky kid to pull the pulley-bone with her, to see which one was going to have good luck and which would get married first. Whatever happened to the pulley-bone in the buckets that fried chicken comes in today? The youngest kid used to have to settle for the parson’s nose, the last piece over the fence.

Can you imagine sending a modern teenager out to catch a chicken, kill it, and clean it for supper?

Oh, well, I didn’t start out to go there. What I wanted to tell you about was a meanie out here at Brownspur: an uncommon predator that we’ve caught killing out of Pure-D meanness, not for food or self defense.

We’re always conscious of wildlife predators out here, which includes the denizens of the yard. Of course, that sometimes includes the coyotes on a late-night pass, as well as coons, possums, skunks, and even a mink, when the peaches start falling. Those are the predators which wear fur, plus the owls and hawks, and the more-than-occasional snake. Used to be, I encouraged the blue jays to congregate around the house, because although they’re raucous, they will congregate and raise Cain when they spot a snake in the yard. Then I can get a hoe and see if it’s one of the poisonous brand which needs to be eliminated entirely, or sometimes a too-large blue runner, chicken snake, or spreading adder that needs to relocated a mile away. A big snake can make you hurt yourself!

But no more will I encourage jaybirds. Adam and Greg were out at the Swimming Hole one afternoon and noticed a blue jay swooping and fussing out by the apple tree, so they hustled over, expecting to encounter a snake.

But it was a baby dove, which was just big enough to flutter out of the nest, but needed a few hours to master flying safely. Despite the efforts of the mother dove to distract the jaybird, the blue one was attacking the little dove viscously. By the time the boys rescued it, the damage was done. The blue jay had pecked in the back of the baby dove’s skull. Had to be out of sheer meanness! I never saw that before.

So, it’s open season out here on blue jays. I am aware that they are probably a protected species, so undoubtedly the game warden will be over to visit. Yet doves are also protected under the game laws, until the season opens. Therefore, that blue jay was breaking the law itself. We held court. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced, and executed. Selah.