Cyanocitta
cristata
The blue jay — a small bird, a long memory.
cyanocitta cristata
For my wife, who heard them first
She heard them before she could name them — a bright, ringing call carrying through the cedars at her grandparents’ cottage in Sauble Beach. Mornings began with that sound, and with the particular quiet that follows it when a jay tilts its head and decides whether you are worth a second look.
Her father taught her the bird the way good fathers teach things: without making a lesson of it. A hand on her shoulder. A finger pointed slowly through the screen door. There. See the crest. The jay would pause, indignant and beautiful, and then be gone, leaving the air a little brighter than it had been.
Years move differently in places like that. Summers compress into a single long afternoon, and the cottage — its smell of pine and lake water, the soft sag of the porch boards — folds neatly into the body and stays there. Long after the cottage was sold, after her father was gone, the jays remained. They still do. They show up in backyards, in parking lots, in the corner of an eye on an ordinary Tuesday, and they are never quite ordinary.
This site is a small thing. A gathering of photographs and field notes and pieces of art, made for the woman who taught me to look up when one calls. It is for her, and for the man who taught her, and for the bird that keeps bringing them both back.
– Pammi, with love, on your birthday.
i. — in the wild
Photographs & portraits
Real photography of Cyanocitta cristata — in cedar, in snowfall, in August light.
On the branchPhotograph · from collection
Crest raisedPhotograph · from collection
After the stormPhotograph · from collection
StillnessPhotograph · from collection
Backyard, late springPhotograph · from collection
Side profilePhotograph · from collection
Among the greenPhotograph · from collection
ii. — voice and behaviour
Field notes & sound
A jay’s call is like feeling the weather, and like recalling a scent that is both from the past and the present. Three short pieces — listen with the windows open, if you can.
01 — call0:42
The jeer call, in full
The familiar ringing jay-jay-jay, recorded in mixed deciduous forest. Often used as an alarm — a small bird with strong opinions about the rest of the room.
play on youtube
recordings open in a new tab — courtesy youtube & the macaulay library
iii. — drawn by hand
Illustrations
Pieces from sketchbooks and small studies. Pencil, ink, watercolour.
Study, in three bluesartist credit to follow
Wingbeat (sketchbook)artist credit to follow
Bare branch, Januaryartist credit to follow
Call (a vignette)artist credit to follow
iv. — on paper, on canvas
Prints & paintings
Framed pieces and limited editions. Each has its own room on the wall, and its own story.
Cedar Bough, with Jay
Painted from a photograph taken on the cottage porch, the morning before the property was sold. The first piece in the collection, and the reason for the rest.
Sauble, at last light
A small bird against a very wide sky. Painted in the last week of August, when the light at the lake turns particular and brief.
Single Jay (study)
A quiet study, printed on warm cotton rag. Numbered and signed.
Two Jays, with Oak
A nod to the old plate-style natural history prints, in modern colour.
Feather (indigo)
A single feather, enlarged. The blue is structural; in the right light, it disappears.
v. — digital art
Digital Art
Pieces made on screens instead of canvas. Each piece is its own quiet moment, kept on purpose.
Childhood Memories
A young Pam, a tree, and a visitor. The kind of scene that lives somewhere between a real afternoon and a dream.
Good Morning
Three jays, one shared breakfast, snow on every branch. A quiet ritual, caught and kept.
A small bird, beautiful memories.
The blue jay comes back to visit throughout the year – and so does your dad.
my Pammi