(Editor's Note: The following was written by Michael Givant, a resident of Woodbury and an associate professor of sociology at Adelphi University.)

There is no such thing as a periwinkle jay. The bird outside my window perched on a branch in the safe haven of the pine tree that straddles our patio, was a blue jay - only it didn't look like one. In the low light of a winter morning its body appeared to be a nondescript gray/brown. A mockingbird, I thought. It was plump and placid as the wind howled, and snow swirled just outside of the safety of the tree beneath whose canopy it perched. A snowplow coming around the curve where our house is situated scraped the street. It seemed to be waiting out the blizzard of '03. I got up on my chair for a better view, careful not to get too close to the window and scare off my visitor. My binoculars were worse than useless; the bird was too close. For a moment I considered turning off the light and getting closer to the window. The bird knew the light was on and if I turned it off and it saw me hovering by the window it might fly.

The bird had a dark tufted crest, which caused me to frown. Mockingbirds don't have those crests. I had just been outside and felt the wind, which could have blown it, I reasoned. Then I saw the black collar and knew that this was a blue jay whose bright colors were momentarily washed away in the winter light. As if on cue, the jay jumped to a higher branch and now faced me. I could dimly make out that its body had a periwinkle hue. Now the bird seemed alert, almost nervous. I've got to write this down, I thought, but was afraid it would be gone if I ran for a pad. The reason the jay had jumped to a higher branch was immediately apparent. A small sparrow had flown onto a lower branch. Dispossessed by a sparrow? Doesn't size have its privileges? Not with birds. How many times had I seen mockingbirds and male red-winged blackbirds chase crows, or harass red-tailed hawks on the Greenbelt Trail?

Then, as if to leave me no doubt that its colors could be splendid in winter, the jay leapt to a flat-topped snow-covered bush directly in front of the window. It stood there with tiny crystals of snow on its light periwinkle body. The jay seemed to glow like a periwinkle halo against the ghostly swirling snow. This was to be an encore to a short performance, as the jay soon flew off. I moved to the window and looked down at a thin diagonal branch. On it was the little sparrow, which, an instant later, too, was gone.

I was left to take a cup of tea and return to the window throughout the morning looking out knowing there was little if any chance my jay would be there. The bird was a bird, and had found a temporary port in a storm and flown away. I, a human, was left to caress its memory with my fingers on a computer keyboard and to recreate the mystery and joy it brought to my life on a winter morning as a blizzard swirled around us.