Heidi and Bluejays

Recently, I read for the first time Johanna Spyri’s (1827-1901) Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre (Heidi’s Years of Wandering and Learning) (c. 1880) and its sequel Heidi Kann Brauchen, Was Es Gelernt Hat (How Heidi Used What She Learned) (c. 1881).

They are nice, pastoral books, set in the elevated Arcadia of the Swiss Alps.

Then, today, I saw these bluejays:

And these bluejays reminded me of a passage from the fifth chapter of the first Heidi book:

“What are you going to make of the child?” the pastor asked. “Nothing; she [Heidi] grows and thrives with goats and the birds. She is well enough with them, and she learns no harm with them,” [said the grandfather].