this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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They're also highly aggressive a-holes.
This sentiment always makes me laugh. We have a large family or three that live in the area and hang out on our feeder and water. They get pushed around by the morning doves, woodpeckers and sparrows. Cardinals and house finches spaz out on their own and fly off.
I've got a birdfeeder with a camera and can confirm that Blue Jays are NOT the bullies 99% of the time!
Yes! Educating people on the value of Blue Jays and trying to dispell the myths about them is important. Know my mom constantly is telling coworkers and others about how the Blue Jays get a bad rap. The ones around us have a mile plus wide communication network that gets the word out about predators and food being available. Kind of cool to hear them if you're on a walk and then see the hawk they're chasing/warning about.
My mother's front yard has 2 medium sized Crepe Myrtles that several generations of mockingbirds have claimed to raise their young. The males fight like crazy, and they never, ever, ever shut up.
For mine I watched the big male hold a Carolina Wren down and murder it while the others of the Wren's group tried to dive bomb and harass the Blue Jay.
I'm not sure what the Wren's did to it, but it made me like the Jays a little less.
Another vote for Jays getting a bad reputation. Mine are at least as polite as any of my other birds, if not moreso.
They look to have a pecking order among themselves though. I only ever really see them harass each other.
Otherwise they are charming and have great personalities. Mine all act very differently from each other and they give me endless hours of entertainment.
Big thumbs up to everyone here too for discussing this and not just downvoting you. This is how it should work.
Ours are just peanut fiends. They're either nowhere to be found or gobbling up peanuts.
That's where I'm currently at with them. When I was working from home though, they'd call for me or get excited when they saw me walk up to the house. It made me feel like one of those people where the crows bring them stuff.
They taught some of the other birds to wait for the peanuts too. A breeding pair of cardinals and a few of the titmice learned from observation. Watching the tits fly off with a peanut near half their size is always entertaining!
Our cardinals seem to like peanuts but they can't really handle one in the shell; can't open their beaks wide enough to grip it. So we make sure they get the busted ones so there's an edge they can grab. Or they get safflower seeds which they have no problem with.
I primarily only feed the birds during snow season, and then I put out shelled and unshelled so everyone can grab their preference. They all seem to prefer the ones in shells (freshness? more natural taste?) but if it's the smaller birds or a squirrel that wants to really load itself up, they'll grab the loose pieces.
Most of the jays refuse to touch the ones not in shells though if whole ones are available and some will even hang back for a while to see if I'll toss some more good ones before they'll settle for the loosies. They'll get pretty competitive for them too.
Oh, word? 👀 That's good to know because best believe my head would be out the window trying to look at it
Ah, they won't attack for no reason, but when they do get angry, they're fearless and relentless. Like geese.
No lie, mom hated them. They'd drag the babys out of our bird house and throw them on the ground to die.