Scream till you can't scream anymore

You know, I don't enjoy being screamed at first thing in the morning. Ever.

I woke up pretty early this morning, even though it's the weekend. I find it quite difficult to break the habit of waking up at a certain time after five continuous days. So, around 7:45 a.m. I headed out to the computer and cracked open a book (no, really...I downloaded an ebook from the public library, and now really wish I had a laptop, since my desktop PC is not so portable).

Before I settled in to read some more of my incredibly wonderful book (more on that later), I let Percy out onto the deck so she could get some fresh air. I feel bad for her being locked up in the apartment all day, with no one to harass, so I try to let her out on the deck as often as possible so she can get her fill of the wildlife in the surrounding area.

Well.

Did we ever get a fun treat this particular morning.

Now, my cat's pretty non-threatening. She doesn't do much when she's out on the deck; she mostly sits there wide-eyed looking at all the squirrels and birds, and occasionally other cats and people (on the ground below, not on my deck...I don't get many visitors...*sigh*).

However, for some reason this morning, a blue jay took major offense to Percy's presence on the deck. He sat in the nearby tree and started making some little noises to express his growing displeasure. Percy's eyes got even bigger (and believe me, that's an incredible feat to observe, because she has big peeps already) and she just sat there and stared, not moving a muscle.

Then, the blue jay gets even more angry that Percy hasn't hightailed it out of there by this point, so he flies over to the deck railing right above her head. He proceeds to sit there and scream at her. And I mean scream. Not a mild little chirping sound that most birds make. This jerk had the biggest set of lungs I have ever heard in my life.

I went to the patio door to watch this little bullying act, thinking that the blue jay would fly away once someone bigger than him appeared on the scene. I took the diplomatic approach first, and asked the bully what he was doing to my poor cat. Then, no word of a lie, that freaking bird turned to look me straight in the eyes, and he screamed right at me.

I will admit, I have been told off many times in my life, but never quite as rudely as that. And while I don't know exactly what he said, I got the general meaning behind it.

So, needless to say, my diplomacy disappeared pretty quick, and I opened the patio door and yelled right back at him. However, since I used English profanities, there may have been yet another language barrier, but I'm pretty sure he understood me just as clearly as I understood him. He at least had the decency to get off my deck and fly back to the tree, although it didn't stop him from screaming at me.

Poor Percy was quite shell-shocked after this incident, and chose to come back inside with me. Even though she was caught in the middle of the screaming match, I guess she figured it was probably better to be with the devil you know than the devil you don't. I cuddled her a little bit to calm her down after the big bad bully tormented her. She appreciated that, since she knew that it was her I was trying to protect in the first place.

This incident just further heightens my dislike of birds, particularly blue jays. I always knew that they were bullies, but really: this bird took on a cat that is at least twice his size (he was a bloody big blue jay) like it was nothing. That takes some cojones. Still doesn't get my respect, though.

Stupid bird.