Mr. Avery’s camp was located on the Indian rd., in Dresden, Me. At that time it was a secluded area of Lincoln county. Mr. Avery loved that place and he would go there on weekends just to get away. He had a special relationship with the Chickadee’s of the area. I think that was his favorite bird. He would feed them on a regular basis, and you could even hear him talking to them as he went outside to feed them.
He always kept plenty of food in there feeders for them. They use to fly down and land on his bald head as he walked out to feeder. They knew he was going to feed them. He would actually take an empty tin can and put bacon grease in it and when it was full he would take it out and nail it to the tree. The birds loved that.
I remember one hunting season when we were all at camp and one morning Mr. Avery came in from feeding the birds and he was complaining about the Blue jay that was stealing all of the food and wasn’t letting the chickadees feed. So every time one of us went outside we would chase the blue jay. Roseasa kept saying he’s out there again and he decided to do something about it so he got out his 22 rifle and decided to shoot the blue jay. At the time we didn’t realize what a project that was going to be.
Roseasa stalked that blue jay for days sneaking up on it. What makes this so funny was that the bird feeder was out the door of the cabin only about 30 feet. The bird would fly down and land on feeder and eat all of the food. As the days went on we would notice Roseasa was missing and he would be at the back door trying to get that blue jay in his sights.
All of a sudden we would here a pop and he fired at the blue jay and he missed every time. This went on all week and the weekend was drawing near and when you leased expected it you would hear a pop. Another miss. It was Saturday and we were sitting around in the afternoon waiting to go out hunting for the last time at camp. We were joking and cutting up, drinking coffee and telling stories. Again Roseasa was missing and we hadn’t notice. All of a sudden we hear a loud boom and everyone looked around. That wasn’t a 22 someone remarked. Roseasa walked in and said “ that blue Jay won’t bother the chickadees any more as he placed his 12 ga shotgun on his bunk. We all laughed went out hunting. The next morning as we went outside there was another blue jay in the bird feeder.
Leave a Reply