A California scrub jay keeps a watchful eye on its adopted domain.

About a month ago, I wrote about how nifty it was when my wife discovered a new bird nest in our backyard.

Well, in the time since, we’ve learned a few things about scrub jays, which make for interesting and curious neighbors. At first, they seem oblivious about humans, but as time goes on and their eggs hatch, they will begin to take notice of you, stare through your windows and squawk at you like a neighbor you can’t call the police on.

Presence of malice

Initially, we casually watched their comings and goings, hoping they wouldn’t abandon their nest. (Naivete is my forte.) Out of a combination of respect and difficult sightlines, we haven’t been able to take very lingering looks at their nest.

Occasionally as I walked by on the short paver path from the deck to the shed in our small backyard that serves as my home office, I’d steal a glance and see mama scrub jay first in the nest, then sort of perched on the edge.

We needn’t have worried. They never did abandon ship. And a little over a week ago, sitting on our back deck, I began hearing occasional low-volume chirpy mewling. A jay would swoop into the guts of the offending bush, where the next generation would sound their greedy cries, and then we’d see a bird fly swiftly away.

How cute. How temporary. How innocent the world appeared those few weeks back.

Now, I avoid looking at them out of fear.

Because as I discovered sitting in my backyard shed/office, they are now watching us. It began with my wife, Catherine, insisting that they would watch her comings and goings closely, even out front of the house, as though they were guarding the perimeter of their territory. She theorized it was perhaps because she was the one who’d discovered the nest.

I had seen a lot of jay activity in our front yard and nearby trees as we drove off a few times, so the idea wasn’t completely nuts to me, just a little.

‘It strafed us!’

Early last week, the scrubs took a sudden and disconcerting interest in me that hasn’t abated. I don’t know if it’s because their young may soon be fledglings, but they are agitated by my presence in the shed, situated about 20 feet from “their” home, located about 7 feet up in our currant shrub. Whenever I’m in the shed, they swoop into the branches of adjacent aspen and lilac trees, peering in at me with great intensity. They hop from branch to branch, peering and squawking, peering and squawking.

I close the curtains for a while, and they’ll forget about me. But I really like the natural light, so I crack the curtain a little. Minutes later, they reappear, gawking and squawking angrily at me, or each other, or just to make the worst noise on earth.

They keep watch on every side of the house, which means I can walk out in the front yard and, yep, there’s a scrub jay in the pine tree. Open the sliding glass door, and, why hello again. Maybe they’ve enlisted mercenary birds to help their cause because it sure seems like more than two jays. The other night, I was talking to Catherine in the driveway and one of the birds swooped closely overhead.

“It strafed us!” I exclaimed in shocked and indignant homeowner fashion. This must be how NIMBYs feel all the time.

At the time of my last column on the subject, a Facebook commenter named Chuck advised me to “keep a close eye on those scrub jays you love … eventually, you’ll see they literally kill every other bird you have. They are natural born killers. You should kill them given the opportunity!”

Their harassment isn’t limited to other birds. At times sitting at my desk, wondering if they’ll peck my eyeballs out if I dare set foot in my yard, I begin to see Chuck’s darkest point.

Protecting their young

Catherine has suggested, as the smarter, more levelheaded, better looking, wiser and kinder of us — frankly, I’m not sure what I bring to the table — that the birds are just doing what parents do best, if the world is to have any hope: being protective of their young.

In modern parlance, parents gonna parent. Even the parents of evil spawn.

It is disconcerting, though. It feels Hitchcockian every time I’m talking to my wife and a bird swoops into frame just outside the nearest window.

I have taken some mild revenge. Just so I had proof of this nonsense, I’d filmed them a few times. As I watched the video and the audio played back from the speaker on my desk, I realized the birds could hear it and it confused the bejesus out of them. I may be guilty of turning up the volume and watching it a few times in a row, ahem.

I don’t really have any intentions of chopping down a currant plant or harassing them. God knows we’ve turned the natural world into something their ancestors wouldn’t recognize. They need a plant for a home, and they’re just looking out for the next generation of flying demons by being militant about the perimeter they’ve set up. Who can fault them for that? I mean, besides myself and Chuck, the Facebook user who tried to warn us.

I can only imagine how much worse it will be once the kiddos are fledglings.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a suit of armor to procure.