From last Summer, a baby Bluejay trying to get an adult to show up with food. Click for full size.
All photos © C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
From last Summer, a baby Bluejay trying to get an adult to show up with food. Click for full size.
All photos © C. Ford. All rights reserved.
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We generally get one or two nesting pairs of blue jays in a tree line in our back yard. It’s fun to watch them as they try to stay perched on something right above a predator, moving from branch to wire to branch, yelling out a warning at the top of their lungs.
When they start dive-bombing the feral cats we know there must be eggs. They can really freak the cats out when they come in from behind and time their squawk just inches above the cat’s head.
If it was up to me, I’d ban all cats from being outside, unless they are enclosed (I have two fully enclosed kennels for mine.) Even so, I have to deal with all the local people who think it’s just dandy to let their cats roam wherever.
We’ve been adopted by a large Scream, about two dozen Bluejays. They have food caches all over our property, and if one of them notices you watching, they’ll spend hours moving their whole cache. Can’t take any chances!
I agree on the cats. I don’t know of anyone around me who lets their cats out, but there are eight or so feral cats nearby this year. My neighbor feeds them and they also like to eat the peanuts in my ground feed.
Every so often she tries to round them up and have them spayed and neutered, but that’s a losing battle. I have mixed feelings on the notion of trapping them and putting them down. Like all the animals around here, they are fun to watch and I empathize with them, but I’ve also seen them take down a lot of birds.
This batch seems lazier about that, though, and I haven’t seen them actually catch anything for months. They also like to stand guard at the bottom of a tree that has a couple of chipmunks living in it.
The tree squirrels, on the other hand, will actually torment the cats, slowly coming down the tree directly towards the cat closer and closer until the cat makes a useless leap up into the tree.
As for the blue jays, they take the food from the front of our house and stash it away in various spots in the back. I’ve never caught them moving a cache, but I’ve read they will even move them if they see a crow watching them stash their food. It’s also fun to catch them when they are going bald in the fall.
The mildly deranged penguin offers a cat-relocating service. Trebuchets are involved.
I miss blue jays.
With more practice you should have fewer misses.
Kengi:
Yep! That’s a helluva a thing, ennit? They look like little blue vultures. I got some good shots of one molting last August. It’s a bit alarming the first time you see it.
rq:
They are engaging birds, smart and beautiful. A while back we were adopted by a large Scream, about 2 dozen Bluejays.
The young one is making its case clear (loudly?). The blue feathers look great.
rq @ 5
I’m guessing the reddish-brown Eurasian jays are a bit more shy, preferring dense forests.
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The Eurasian jay in Finnish is närhi (the American would be sininärhi or sinitöyhtönärhi, literally bluejay or blue tuft jay).
Ice Swimmer @ 8:
Oh yes. Nothing like a baby bird for making an amazing amount of noise. They keep the adults seriously busy.
I like blue tuft jay, that’s nicely descriptive. It’s always cool to see them on very overcast days, then they are mostly white, with some pale gray.
Caine @ 9
I wondered, why do they lose the blue when wet. A bit googling:
Yes, birds don’t have blue pigment, the blue colors come from sophisticated optics in the feathers and the optical effect will only work with dry feathers.
Ice Swimmer
Nah, not that shy, but larger and less social (I suppose). And slightly quieter. Though still inclined to shove other birdies off the feeder, should they deem themselves HUNGRY. :)
Adorable. We get mostly Mexican (aka Gray Breasted) and Scrub Jays here, although in the mountains, I have seen more than one Stellar’s Jay.
I don’t know if you’ve posted it somewhere already, but what camera do you use? I’m going to be in the market to replace my old digital point and shoot in another year or so.
Crimson Clupeidae @ 12:
I have an old Nikon D90 (and an even older Nikon D80). The best feature of any Nikon is that all their lenses, past and present, fit every camera body. That’s a big plus. I bought my D80 with a 18-135mm kit lens, and that is a great lens, I love it. Does everything well, from landscape to macro. Inexpensive too, in the kit, and not too bad separately. The more expensive lens, and great one for birds is my 70-300mm lens. Fabulous, especially if you’re like me, and have a set up where you aren’t too far away from the birds.
Downside? Light. Nikons do not like low light conditions, and if you are fussy about the grain you get with high ISO, you might want to go with a Canon. Canons give a great performance, clean shots, good in low light. All their lenses do not fit all their bodies, so you get a bit stuck there. (Unless they have now changed that somehow). Canon lenses are pretty expensive, but most all good ones are, so I don’t think that’s a sticking point. If I had the money, I’d have both, and a Pentax on the side. Do as much reading as you can, (I always recommend reading Ken Rockwell’s reviews), but don’t get bogged down. Too many people end up being vociferous gear heads, who care about gear, not photography.