A brisk day, with a few flurries and graupel, to boot, but Your beauty was a sight to behold, Father! The vibrant colors of the trees in all their splendor, it would take a mighty God to create such a diversity of hues across the vastness of nature! All praise to You!
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One thing that I’ve noticed recently is the crazy number of blue jays flying around! Especially on my elementary route in the early mornings, I’ve seen them, alone and in pairs, zooming in and out of the trees.
I’m sure it’s happened before, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in action. In the spring they are quieter and a little less active, due to mating and having and raising their young – don’t want to draw too much attention to themselves and their young families. In autumn they let it all out, they are raucous rabble-rousers! Calling back and forth, scavenging for food, and then leaving caches of it all about.
In the spring it’s all about their nuclear family but in autumn it’s a huge family reunion – every one of them is in the mix! Like us they are highly social and are more active in autumn, when the harvest is good and families are reuniting, it’s a time to come together – the more the merrier! With the turning of the season, it brings an end to the ban on brassiness. They can be loud again. They can be themselves.
OK, here is a weird fact about blue jays from the blog Cats and Birds.
The pigment found in blue jay feathers is actually brown.
Melanin, the same pigment found in human hair and skin, is a brown pigment – and it is the pigment found in Blue Jay feathers.
Why, then, do they appear blue?
Bird coloration is produced in a variety of ways, of which pigmentation is just one. The blue appearance of many blue birds is due to refraction – a light scattering phenomenon. The barb structure of Blue Jay feathers is such that, when light hits them, the blue light is refracted while the other wavelength of visible light is absorbed by the melanin, making them look blue.
If you come across a Blue Jay feather, try backlighting it. Without direct light, the blue is no longer reflected, and the feather will look brown.
This wasn’t necessarily the direction I thought this would go, but God obviously is pointing me in this direction.
We are born separated from God. Sin and its impact upon our lives “discolor”, if you will, the beauty that God created us to show forth. With our salvation, the sinful color of our souls is refracted by Jesus, the Light of the world (John 8:12). What was once drab and detrimental to our lives is changed to the purest of whites! Most believe that the sum of all the colors of light adds up to white.
Jesus, the Light of the world, sums up all of what we are meant to be! and with Him, we are just that, all we were created to be!
Oct 17th, 2022, Mon, 6:32 pm
