The bird I kept missing appeared in an ordinary garden

One of the birds that remained missing for the longest while I searched for Seattle's classic species was the Steller's Jay. The city has many beautiful and interesting birds, but this conspicuous blue jay was a particular target from the beginning. To me, it is one of the defining birds of the Pacific Northwest, so it stayed high on my list.

However often I went through city parks, along the coast, around residential areas or into forests outside Seattle, I found many interesting birds but not the Steller's Jay.

For weeks, this became slightly frustrating. I kept hearing one in similar places and sometimes knew fairly precisely that a bird had to be nearby. Because they often moved through dense vegetation or high in the trees, I still never saw one properly.

I found other jay species during that period and eventually even saw a Canada Jay, but the supposedly common Steller's Jay remained absent from my list.

That finally changed on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. I was visiting my girlfriend, who had often told me that Steller's Jays came to the front garden, together with Rufous Hummingbirds. I was sitting on the terrace when several jays suddenly appeared.

Fortunately, I had my camera and could react immediately. On a small tree in the front garden sat the bird I had been trying to find for so long. The situation could hardly have been better: the Steller's Jay was relatively unobstructed, sitting in good light on a branch with a peanut in its bill.

It did not give me much time. I had only a few seconds to raise the camera and take several photographs. Soon afterwards, it disappeared again with the peanut. A few frames had been enough.

For me, it was another small reminder of how birding often works. You can spend hours deliberately searching for one species, visit apparently perfect places and repeatedly believe that this time it should work. Sometimes, nothing happens.

Then, weeks later, you sit on a terrace without planning anything and the bird you have been looking for lands directly in front of you.

A Steller's Jay is not especially rare in Seattle, and many people in the area see them regularly. I had probably just been unlucky for a while. That made it all the better to finally find one in a place where I had not been deliberately searching at all.