Yard Hoodlums

Last week I commented about the flock of young scrub jays which are currently inhabiting my yard. Originally there were about five. The flock has grown steadily, and last time I was able to count them there were about ten. I suspect that these are all juveniles from this year's nesting, since they all show the solid gray head and backs of young birds. By springtime they will have the blue heads of adult jays.

According to Kenn Kaufman's "Lives of North American Birds," western scrub jays lay 2-7 eggs in each brood, and although they usually only have one brood each year, they can have two. Since these youngsters hatched and are independent so early in the season, and since I rarely see the adults, I suspect that the adults are on another nest. That means my gang of hoodlums will probably increase even more by the end of the summer. Hatchlings fledge 18-19 days after hatching, so I'll be looking for new jays around the end of the month.

The first group of fledglings took a couple of days to learn how to fly comfortably. They spent a lot of time sitting in the apple tree and hopping from one branch to another, sometimes misjudging the distance and overshooting the branch they were aiming for. Quite often they'd bang themselves in the head by hitting a branch they failed to notice, or they'd land on a branch too small to take their weight and would flutter in a panic until they could reach something more stable. Anytime the parent birds were in the vicinity the youngsters would mob them, screaming for food, until the parents began discouraging such behavior by nipping the youngsters in the head. I suspect the parents directed the youngsters to my yard, knowing there is always an ample supply of peanuts, sunflower seeds, cracked corn and water to sustain the youngsters while they went about seeing to their second brood. Whether or not directing them here was intentional, the young jays have adopted my yard as their personal turf.

Although they do leave the feeders each time I go out into the yard, they do recognize me as the source of the food. Their favorite feeder is the window feeder, one of those models which looks like an aquarium that fits inside a window so that the birds are actually inside your house. The sides are made from one-way mirrored glass, so that I can observe the birds without them seeing me. I keep cracked corn and peanuts in this feeder, and it's the only feeder where I serve peanuts. Jays, as everyone who has encountered them knows, love peanuts. They're currently going through about five pounds a week in my yard, and they'd eat more if I gave them more. Yesterday I didn't get the peanuts in the feeder by my usual time in the morning, and one of the young jays screeched loudly for several minutes, begging for his breakfast. I didn't respond quickly enough, and he started pecking at the inside of the feeder, making all the racket he could. He kept it up until I appeared with the jug of peanuts and refilled the feeder. It's clear to see who rules THIS roost!

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