![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/woodhouses-scrub-jay-1694-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"woodhouse's-scrub-jay-1694-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nIn the 30 years I’ve lived in this house I’ve never seen a scrub jay in my yard. Until yesterday.<\/p>\n
I’ve said it before, I’m not a traditional birder. I don’t chase rarities and I don’t keep lists but I know what bird species I’ve photographed and which ones I’ve seen in my yard. So only minutes after dawn yesterday morning it got my attention when I heard the distinctive call of a scrub jay outside the window next to my computer in my bedroom. So I peeked through my drapes and sure enough, there was a scrub jay about 20′ away on my neighbor’s roof.<\/p>\n
Damned rights, I grabbed my camera to see if I could document it in the shadowy low light soon after dawn.<\/p>\n
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1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender<\/em><\/p>\n This is one of only a couple of sharp shots I managed to get through my dirty window. I was surprised that ‘he’ had what turned out to be a sunflower seed in his bill. I believe he may have retrieved the seed from my neighbors gutter which is only a couple of feet to the left of the bird.<\/p>\n Scrub jays are known for ‘scatterhoarding”, meaning they store food items individually rather than in large caches and they have excellent memories of where they’ve stashed each individual item. So perhaps this jay retrieved his own previously hidden seed or maybe he was stealing seeds from a chickadee cache. I dunno.<\/p>\n With all these shadows and my dirty window I knew there was no chance for decent photos from my bedroom so I rushed to my north-facing patio door on the long shot that he’d show up in my back yard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender<\/em><\/p>\n Miraculously he did exactly that and now I knew the original source of the sunflower seed. He was picking seeds out of the sunflowers I’d planted in my garden last spring for the express purpose of attracting birds. He was actually hanging upside down from one of the seed heads, chickadee-style. Here he had just fallen away from the seed head he’d been hanging from.<\/p>\n I took dozens of shots of him in my back yard but most of them were soft to very soft. Hand holding my brutishly heavy lens in low light while standing at my open patio door is a recipe for camera shake, slow shutter speeds and soft images so most of my photos barely qualify as documentary images.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/640, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender<\/em><\/p>\n So I was delighted to get this one while he was standing on my back fence and trying to decide which sunflower seed head to go after next. By now I was kneeling down and resting my lens on the back of one of my dining room chairs so the photo is sharp.<\/p>\n I actually like this shot. Weathered wood doesn’t come more rustic than my ancient cedar back fence and the leaves remaining on the lilac bush add some nice fall color. I even like the background.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I may not be a traditional birder but I fully understand the excitement of birders when they can add a new species to their yard list. Scrub jays are pretty common in those areas of the vast Salt Lake Valley that border on the mountains but here in the middle of the valley they’re quite unusual.<\/p>\n Made my day, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 30 years I’ve lived in this house I’ve never seen a scrub jay in my yard. Until yesterday.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/woodhouses-scrub-jay-1745-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"woodhouse's-scrub-jay-1745-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/woodhouses-scrub-jay-1734-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"woodhouse's-scrub-jay-1734-ron-dudley.\\"")
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