This Stellars Jay was one of six that were hungrily attacking our feeder the last few days, in preparation for the storms that we are wading through right now. Two-thirds of an inch of rain has fallen in the past 12 hours or so.
The Stellars Jay is the blue jay of the western United States, but has all the attitude of his Eastern US cousin. They are so fun to watch, although their attitude doesn't always bode well for the smaller birds. The jay is large enough that he sometimes has trouble with smaller feeders. Ours is a medium-sized one that the ravens can't balance on (it swings from a shepherds hook). The jays have discovered that they can reach the seed from the hook if they lean a little. They are learning to balance on the ledge of the feeder, some better than others; and, there is always the seed that falls on the ground. The little birds are pretty good at sneaking their bites at the seed in, avoiding the jays, and taking the seed to the nearby tree to eat.
We keep black sunflower seeds in the feeder right now. It seems to go over well with the birds here.
2 comments:
We have the Eastern Blue Jays here and their characteristics are much the same. I like them for a lot of reasons and would like to see one of your birds here. I suppose the rest of the birds would be astonished.
Beautiful bird....love seeing the cousin to our Blue Jay here in the East. Great capture!
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