A frequent visitor to our yard. (Click for larger views.)
Scrub Jay in TreeEdited 01-22-2005 to add: Seadragon was curious about jays eating peanuts, so I thought I’d add a few bird feeding links for those interested in feeding wild birds. Apparently lots of birds like peanuts or peanut butter. The jays will hide their peanuts and find them again later. All three links are located at the Cornell Ornithology site.
Choosing Bird Food: Seed Types
Birdscope
Project FeederWatch: What to Feed Birds
Here’s some information about the jay pictured above:
Western Scrub-Jay
Funny, I didn’t know they liked peanuts. I read this post from my Bloglines window, which showed only the text, not the picture. I clicked to see the picture, half expecting to see an elephant (cause what else eats peanuts, right?)
I’ve never seen a Scrub Jay. It seems to me that they come from the California side of the country. Bucks County, Pennsylvania (where we live) probably hasn’t had any. Thanks for sharing.
Cas
I’ve posted a link, in the article, to more information on this jay, who’s a Western Scrub Jay.
My first encounter with these rascal birds was downright scary.Apparently a pair of scrubs had a nest somewhere in my yard and they viewed me as a menace to them.They began to try to scare me away.I would be in my kitchen and one of them was clinging to the screen yelling at me. This continued for a long time. What was really weird was that they seem to know which room I was in at all times.If I was in the bedroom off the patio one of them would sit on a patio chair and squawk, staring in my glass window. Even when I would go in the bathroom with frosted glass windows I would hear them, open the window, and there they would sitting on the fence near the window.I would come home, pull into the garage and see them sitting on the fence looking through the side door to the garage. This continued for a long time, then they disappeared. The next summer I saw one in my yard near my bird feeder and I ran in the house and got some peanuts in the shell. Wham! grabbed it up flew off. I have been feeding them now for three years and I love them.They must sit in a tree and watch for me to come out cause when I do they instantly appear in a tree waiting to swoop down and snatch up their peanuts. I love these guys and will be very sad the day they don’t show up.
Audrey, what an experience. We had that problem with nesting starlings, where I used to work. One pine tree they liked for nesting was strictly off limits during the spring unless you enjoyed getting pecked (hard!) on the back of the head.
I’ve seen mockingbirds stretch nest protection heroics to the absolute limit.
It’s great you were able to make peace with peanuts.
I’ve bonded with Western Scrub Jays on three separate occasions, the latest being today. They love unshelled peanuts and will come into my house to retrieve one. To date they have taken nuts from my hands, perched on one knee while taking a nut from the other, and even loudly squawked when the come into the house and can’t find me or a peanut. I’ve taken dozens of photographs of them in my patio and in my house. They are wonderful birds!
I found out that Jays do indeed like the peanuts we put out in our backyard for the smaller birds. The real surprise though comes with a clattering crash at around six am most mornings when one of the jays likes to pull the hook that suspends a wind chime from our guttering! Great wake-up call though