Blue Jays

Blue Jays are loud, raucous birds that can set the entire woods into Defcon 5 when they start squawking. Usually they sound off whenever there is a potential threat. They will mob a hawk or owl sitting quietly in a tree and harass the hell out of it until it gives up and moves on. (Why the hawks never seem to take any active resistance to this harassment and attack and eat one of its tormentors, I don’t know.) I’ve seen the Blue Jays set up a series of shrill warnings as a fox walked through the woods and was even alerted to a large buck one time when the Blue Jays’ alarm system went off.

Occasionally, however, the Blue Jay community will send out false alarms that will send all the smaller birds diving for cover and leaving the feeders completely at the Blue Jays’ mercy.

The bright blue, black, white and even gray of the Blue Jay is a welcome sight in the winter. But not so much in the spring when they may sneak into some unsuspecting bird’s nest to eat either the eggs or newly hatched chicks.

Blue Jays around the Aerie have been appearing in swarms. As I said the other day, they remind me of Viking raiders of the first millennium. They swoop in to wreak havoc on the feeders. Chasing all the smaller birds away, spooking the larger mourning doves and generally marauding and pillaging until they are sated. Then they disappear for a time only to return once their crop is empty and they want more easy pickings.