Seeing a blue jay
A blue jay's color flashes even on a dull day, yet the bird holds no blue pigment at all. Its blue is a trick of feather structure and light, a neat image for qualities that appear only in the right light.
What it may mean
There is no blue pigment anywhere in a blue jay. Its feathers hold dark brown melanin, and above it lies a layer of tiny air pockets in the keratin that scatters blue light back toward your eye. Crush a feather and the powder is dull brown; hold one up against the sun and the blue fades. The color exists only when light meets the structure from the right side. Many human qualities work the same way. Your patience, wit or skill may look ordinary until the right situation lights it up, and then people wonder where it came from. A jay in the oak is a fair excuse to ask which light shows you best: which settings, people or tasks make your best side visible, and which leave it looking brown. Folk traditions are divided on jays; you can make up your own mind.
Depending on how you saw it
Finding a blue jay feather
Turn the feather in your hand and watch it change: bright blue when light falls on its face, gray-brown when light shines through from behind. Blue jays are protected native birds, so take a photo and leave the feather on the ground. In which light do you look your truest, and how often do you get to stand in it?
Jays calling with bell-like notes
Besides the famous harsh scream, the birds also make soft clicks, rattles and clear whistles that sound like a tiny bell. People who know only the scream are surprised to hear them. Who do you know only by their loudest side?
A flock of jays moving along a shore in fall
Each fall some blue jays gather in loose flocks and travel along lakeshores and ridges, while others of the same population stay put. Scientists still do not fully know why some go and some remain. What decision of yours makes sense only to you, and does it need to make sense to anyone else?
Why it happens in nature
Blue jay feathers are colored by structure. Melanin gives a dark base, and a spongy layer of keratin and air above it scatters short blue wavelengths, so the feather looks blue only in reflected light. Blue jays live across eastern and central North America; some migrate in fall flocks while others stay all year.
What folk beliefs say
India (Hindu)
In India, a Hindu belief held that if the bluejay moved to the right of a traveler with a worm, an insect or a bone in its mouth, or flew round in the sky, the traveler would soon gain wealth. The bird called bluejay in India is the Indian roller, not the American blue jay.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 588. View the page
To reflect on
In which settings does your best side become visible, and how could you spend more time there?