Jay Bird

In the Brownies, many years ago, we learnt this song:

Way down south, not very far off,
A jay bird died of the whooping cough.
He whooped so hard with the whooping cough,
that he whooped his head and his tail right off.

We were kneeling, with bottoms on heels as we sang this little ditty. But every time we came to the word "whoop...", we had to sit up. The trick was, not to sit up on "tail".
Simpler times.

But as a result, I always thought of the jay as a rather exotic, foreign bird. (The song was meant to be sung with an American accent, as I recall.) I didn't knowingly see one until about ten years ago. They are locally plentiful, but normally very shy. As soon as you lift your camera, they are off.