A Scold of Blue Jays

I don't remember when I've seen so many Blue Jays at my backyard bird feeding station.  They first showed up in October, and as the snow piled up and the temperatures plummeted, their numbers have increased to an all-time high:  12.  

But the number isn't what caught my eye.  It's their behaviors that have me spending more time watching them from my kitchen window.

After an inch of snow the other day, I watched a jay use his beak to shovel the snow to get to the cracked corn under it.  Then he filled his throat with 15 pieces of corn before flying to a perch in a nearby tree, where he spent the rest of the morning soaking up the sun and watching the action at the feeders.

That was just one of the jay behaviors I hadn't noticed before.  

I've also spotted them eating snow, peanut butter suet from a suet cage, millet on the ground (as many as 36 seeds at a time) and the carcass of a mouse (that I had caught in a snap trap in my basement).

But the biggest surprise so far:  Blue Jays eat millet.  

Blue Jays

I was in my kitchen when I heard an odd noise outside my window.  It sounded like a chorus of rusty, hand-operated water pumps.

By the time I got to the window to look, my bird feeding station had been taken over by five bold and brassy Blue Jays.  There was not another bird in sight.

These brazen "boys in blue" stood at my feeders, literally stuffing their faces with sunflower seed.  Like their corvid cousins, jays have expandable throat pouches designed for temporary seed storage.

When they could stuff no more, the jays flew off to cache the seeds somewhere out-of-sight, in a hollow tree or beneath shrubs.

I am always happy to see these incredibly intelligent birds in my yard.  I enjoy their social displays and amazing variety of vocalizations.

I cringe when I hear people say they just don't like these aggressive Blue Jays because of their undeserved reputation for taking eggs and hatchlings from other birds' nests.  Truth is, these jays prefer acorns, fruits and invertebrates - including tent caterpillar pupae and paper wasp larvae.

At backyard birdfeeders, Blue Jays prefer raw peanuts in the shell, shelled peanuts and sunflower.  They will also eat cracked corn and millet.