Gardening

    

Gardening

Jay (Garrulus glandarius) taken a few years ago

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and the sun is shining brightly again, today. though not as warmly. Therefore, out into the garden we ventured to bring the wilderness into some sort of order. That entailed pruning (polite word for savaging) several innocent shrubs and trees. We have an hour’s extra daylight now. I jest – it’s only half an hour.

Anyway, it looks a little tidier now. There’s still much to do, but, oh, boy! I ache. I must be getting old. (Must I? Do I have to?)

There is much activity outside. Butterflies flutter by, birds sing fit to bust and chase each other round and round, and squirrels scamper through the still bare oak tree highways.

For three days now, a jay (Garrulus glandarius) has visited our garden. It’s unusual at this time of year. We see them in the autumn, when they’re collecting and caching acorns, a habit responsible for the rapid spread of oak trees after the last Ice Age, around 115,000 to 11,700 years ago (that was a cruel, harsh winter!)

It was probably eating insects. Fortunately, it is too early for the stag beetles to emerge – they are in enough danger without becoming a tasty snack.

Jays are the most colourful of the European corvids and always a joy to see. They are shy, woodland birds, unlike their bold strutting relatives, the smartly dressed magpies, and the clever, cunning, soberly clad crows and jackdaws.

Jay is an archaic term, from the early seventeenth century, for a foolish or dim-witted person. In the 1900s, in the US, it was used to describe an unworldly person, particularly from a rural area, not accustomed to the hustle and bustle of city life, and unaware of the dangers inherent in crossing a busy road.

From that meaning arose the term, ‘jaywalking.’ Jaywalking, or crossing a road against the lights, or not at a designated crossing, or simply, carelessly, is frowned upon in many cultures and can lead to a fine.

Popinjay derives from an Arabic word, babbagha, meaning parrot. A person described as a popinjay was considered conceited and overly absorbed with their appearance. It also indicated someone who talked much but said little of import, an empty sounding vessel. It was in common use for several hundred years, from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It is a word which could be brought back usefully into the modern lexicon.

‘Jay’ is also modern slang for a joint, or hand-rolled cigarette containing cannabis.