On November 28, 2020 I saw and photographed the first Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay I’d ever seen in my yard. Two days ago I photographed my second one.
I’d been hearing jays in the neighborhood for a couple of days and the previous day an extended and very noisy interaction between several jays and a Cooper’s Hawk in my neighbor’s huge trees was hard to ignore. But none of them appeared in my yard and I got no photos.
But two days ago, while I was photographing California Quail from my patio, this jay suddenly appeared in the snowball bush next to my back fence. I spent 27 minutes with ‘him’ and he spent much of that time trying to figure out how to feed at my cylinder feeder. More about that in a minute.
Typical of jays, he made a racket everywhere he went. Which made it ridiculously easy for me to know exactly where he was as he explored my yard and garden.
Eventually he discovered the rebar I use as a support pole for my cylinder feeder and assumed a pose that showed off his magnificent blue tail. The red in the background is the amaranth in my garden.
He spent a long time trying to determine if there was anything good to eat in that seed cylinder and if so, how to get to it. He tried several times but it seemed like he couldn’t figure out how to get to the cylinder with that red rain-protective ‘lid’ in the way.
So he gave up and explored my garden. Here he’s on my pole bean trellis, with his long blue tail sticking through one of the openings in the wire.
He flew up to one of the metal posts supporting the trellis and began making enough noise to wake the dead.
In this shot it looks like he’s about to poop but he’s just trying to regain his balance after making a quick 180° turn on the post.
Then he took off and disappeared in the snowball bush again.
The next time I saw him he’d landed on my bird bath for a drink. I’m embarrassed by the condition of the bird bath – it’s scummy and most of the water has evaporated. My excuse is that I’ve been working on a huge indoor project for nearly three weeks and the day before I’d forgotten to clean and fill the bird bath. Rest assured, it’s now squeaky clean and full of water.
In the nearly half hour I spent with him he returned multiple times to the cylinder feeder to try to figure out how to get to the seed. Eventually he realized that he was big enough to…
reach the seed from the vertical part of the pole. After this success he returned several times for a snack.
I always buy the Bug Nut and Berry Cylinders from my friends at Wild Birds Unlimited. Those cylinders contain mealworms, tree nuts, sunflower chips, peanuts, raisins, and cranberries. Being a jay, he always picked off one of the nuts for his snack and ignored everything else.
And he always flew off to a secluded place to enjoy his prize. After eating this nut, he disappeared and I never saw him again.
After listening to him squawk for 27 minutes, the sudden quiet was almost deafening.
Ron
This is a great post! The photos are wonderful! But your story-telling is so engaging. And this is true of many of your blog posts. Have you ever considered compiling some of your stories and publishing them in book form? I could help you edit them. (Did Diane ever suggest something like that? I feel as if I am channeling her. . .and that she would have offered her editing chops if she were here.)
“your story-telling is so engaging”
That part of your comment gave me the warm fuzzies, Sue. Especially coming from you.
Yes, Diane offered. Several times. But a book just isn’t going to happen. Too much work.
Lovely array of photos ! Down south here in Cedar City– first time
ever having scrub jays in my yard, and also for another friend in a
different part of town ! OF COURSE we knew they were present because of the racket–such an elegant-looking creature to be making
such an ungodly collection of sounds ….I prefer looking at your
images !
“an ungodly collection of sounds”
That’s a pretty accurate description, Kris. Made me smile.
Sorry, I solved the problem by going to your website rather than viewing your post in my email.
Richard, when I originally set up my blog I turned off the option that included the entire post in those post emails. It worked fine for years but at some point, WordPress turned it back on with no input from me.
I’ll try once more to turn it off again.
Hi Ron. When I view your recent posts, your photos appear as thumbnails. Am I the only one with this problem?
Best wishes!
Nice photos. The composition of that one with ‘his’ tail poking through the wire is – for reasons I cannot quite describe – particularly appealing.
Was not aware that the Western Scrub Jay got split into two species (2016). Still getting used to the name change from Brown Towhee to California Towhee. Just can’t keep up.
A Jay by any other name is still a interesting, curious and noisy little bugger.
I’m glad you like that “tail poking” shot, Michael. I played around with the composition of that photo for quite a while. And because of the unusual composition, I made that photo 1100 pixels wide instead of my usual 900 pixels. For readers on a big screen, it should make a difference.
And I agree, “lumping and splitting” of bird names can be quite frustrating – especially if you’re a birder who keeps lists.
What a beautiful little bird. I hope the Cooper’s doesn’t get him!
“I hope the Cooper’s doesn’t get him!”
I’ve had the same thought, Cathy. There are plenty of House Sparrow’s around to keep the Coop’s belly full.
What a beautiful bird and terrific photos.
Thanks, Karen.