 It's not often that I come "face to face" with a Blue Jay without scaring it off, but this one was so intent on feasting on the wildlife in this lawn that it ignored me completely, even though I was only three or four yards away.
My problem was that the card in my camera was full of pictures. Pam and I had walked to the bridge where Ocean Township and Asbury Park meet on Sunset Avenue and I'd taken a card full of pictures of the cormorants. Truth be told, who needs 82 pictures of cormorants? So I was frantically deleting pictures from the card and praying that the blue jay would hang around. I decided that I'd better be quick -- so often lately, in my quest for perfection I've ended up with nothing. I made room for three pictures and started shooting. Of course, it immediately turned its back on me, but at least that gives us a very good look at its beautiful tail plumage.
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 It started to turn towards me, so I clicked off another shot. I couldn't believe the extent to which it was filling my viewfinder. I'm sure I've never been this close to a blue jay, certainly never with the camera in hand.
It was already getting on for seven in the evening, so I was worried that the light would spoil the pictures, as had happened with the hawk pictures a couple of days ago. I was even looking west towards the sun.
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 It even obligingly turned towards me, allowing me to take this shot, filling up my card. There was no chance to take any more pictures because now it was pointing in my direction it finally became tentative and, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, it flew off to a tree on the other side of the road.
I should publicly thank the little girl who came running out of her front door while this was going on, saw me photographing the bird and froze until I'd finished.
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