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Oh, man. Orioles...they are pretty rare up here, but we had a pair hanging around for a while. We tried the oranges and grape jelly too, but they were just passing through!

Stellar’s Jay! Those are beautiful, I have never seen one! I love Blue Jays, though. Love them! Sure, they are noisy, but they are so much fun to watch, with all their expressive sounds, their athletic flight, their body language.

Jays are indeed smart, but they have funny and sometimes goofy behavior. I disliked them for many years, because I never paid attention to them except the raucous call they make that is so irritating to our ears.

When I describe Blue Jays to people, I occasionally get someone who observes that I tend to describe their behavior in anthropomorphic descriptions, to which I plead guilty. I can’t help it. There is so much in their behavior. Hilariously, they are actually greedy! Part of it is when they get food, they fly away with purpose, in a straight line, beating their wings that would make you think they were being pursued by a bird of prey. But they aren’t...and when I watch them do this, I get the very human impression that when they get a peanut and fly off like that, they are actually...absconding with their purloined food! So it kind of does make me feel just a little they might be prey to greed.

But it isn’t that absconding behavior that made me think they experienced greed.

It is when I figured out I could get Blue Jays to behave in very un-birdlike behavior if I threw a Bluejay two peanuts of nearly exactly the same size and shape. I observed that if I threw out to a Blue Jay watching me two peanuts of very different sizes, it will unfailingly go to the obviously larger peanut every single time without fail.

An interesting variant on this is to throw out the smaller peanut wait a second and then toss out the bigger peanut. Blue Jays are so ready to get a peanut, that when you throw one, they unhesitatingly make a beeline to it. Often, they have the smaller peanut already in their mouth, and when they see the bigger one land, they drop the smaller one and immediately go for the larger one. But what I find so hilarious is the way the drop the smaller peanut...I swear, it looks like they spit it out with a resentful prejudice, as if to say “WTF? Did you really think I would pass up THAT peanut for THIS one?” They don’t just just drop the peanut, they spit it, and I think if I could hear the sound as they spit it, it would sound like “PAH!”

So I tried an experiment-I threw out two peanuts that were as close in size as I could get them. The Blue Jay would hop up to one, and pick it up. Then, he would drop it, and go pick up the other one. I have seen a Blue Jay go back and forth between two peanuts up to six times before choosing one, like an old miser who can’t make up his mind between two small nuggets of gold that appear indistinguishable. It is almost the mindset “They look the same. But one HAS to be bigger than the other. And I need to know which one!”

And once in a while, when I amuse myself by tossing two peanuts to see how they react, a Blue Jay will take a different approach. Instead of taking one, it decides it is going to take both of them. They try like hell, gagging to get a whole peanut down into its gorge, which is fine if it is a sunflower seed, not so much with a peanut. But they try! And it occasionally succeeds, but then it cannot figure out how to grab the other peanut. They try in vain to pick it up as they gag on the one already in their throat, and it affects the way their beak works! I have even seen one disgorge the peanut and gorge down the other one, thinking perhaps they can work it with that one down in its gullet! Most of the time, they finally give up and fly away. And sometimes there is one who manages to grab the second peanut and fly away with it.

There was one time where that Blue Jay was getting so frantic trying to grab that second peanut that it ended up simply impaling the second peanut on its beak and flying away with it like that!

Funny I used to find them so annoying, and now I find them fascinating.

As I began paying close attention to them, I realized they are different behaviorally from other birds. (Blue Jays are like Crows, part of the Corvid family, the “smart” ones...) I realized that apart from that screetch, they actually make sounds that are quite nice, very melodious, pleasant calls. They have what is called a “Pump Handle” or “Squeaky Gate” call that is fun to hear, and they use it in territorial disputes with other Blue Jays. If you watch them, they bob their body up and down as they do it, and it gives them a rather goofy air!

When I feed them peanuts in the shell I make a clicking sound (six quick clicks as I snap my tongue from the roof of my mouth) and the Blue Jays, sometimes up to a dozen, know there are peanuts coming, and and they are all watching closely to see where I throw them. There are often up to six squirrels on he ground at the feeder at the same time, and the jays and squirrels compete for the peanuts. So the Jays and squirrels are all frozen, looking to see which direction I throw the peanut in (I do one at a time) and when I toss it, the race is on.

I try to toss them so the Jays can get there first, but they have to be bold. If they hesitate, they are at risk for being bitten by the squirrel, because the squirrels take this quite personally, and the Jays know it. But the bolder ones, even if it is close, will swoop in a split second before the squirrel can get there in a full run, peck the peanut up their beak, and fly off with their booty where they perch on a branch and smash the peanut repeatedly against a branch until the peanut shell opens up and they can get the good stuff inside! Usually, I have enough peanuts on each session to give every Jay a chance to get one, and they usually do. If another Jay or a squirrel gets the peanut first, they look up to see where I throw the next one...:)

I have begun to recognize them individually, which is kind of hard, but if you observe closely, it can be done.

I have one named “Bell Curve” because it isn’t that bright. I throw a peanut down, and it cocks its head and looks at me, then looks at the peanut, then at me quizzically, but another Jay or squirrel swoops in and gets it, and then Bell Curve looks back at me. Not too bright.

There is another one I call Black Crest because he has very prominent black markings that go from his face all the way around to the back of his crest and color the entire back black, which is prominent. Black Crest is very bold, and when I throw the peanut, he meets it while it is bouncing around on the ground like a football player trying to recover an onside kick!

Blue Jays really do have a dark side, though. I watched one murder a sparrow. Really. It wasn’t for food, and there was something quite deliberate and sadistic about it. I couldn’t stand the piteous sound the sparrow was making as the blue jay pecked away at it for about fifteen minutes (initially I had no idea what that horrible sound was) so I decided I had to end it because I couldn’t work.)

I walked outside, and as I walked around the corner towards the feeder, I could see the blue jay standing on the sparrow, deliberately pecking. It looked up and saw me, and as I walked closer, it took one more peck, then flew away.

The sparrow had its eyes pecked out, and oddly, there was sparrow blood all over its head. I guess those little birds didn’t even seem like they had blood in them. But it was quivering and making noises, so I just put it out of its misery with the heel of my shoe.

Seriously, there was a specific sense of malice on the part of that Blue Jay. It was almost as if it had a vendetta against that sparrow for something, and was making sport of killing it because it LIKED killing it with malice. Never thought I would anthropomorphize an animal like that, but I couldn’t explain it any other way.

When the jay saw me, it took one, last...defiant peck. There was a feeling of “How do you like those apples, you effing sparrow piece of crap?”