Bully Blue Jays

Blue Jays (Cianocitta Crystata) must certainly be among the smartest and most beautiful of birds. Their bright-blue feathers, black collar and a contrasting white belly--plus a proud-looking crest--certainly makes them stand out in the crowd.

But blue jays are aggressive. In my feeders, there are several blue jays that love guarding the sunflower feeder, gaping their beaks at anybody that tries to eat. Sometimes I have to scare them away to let the smaller birds eat, for only the bold chickadees dare get close to the huge jay. The jays are incredibly agile, they hang to the feeder and grab seeds by the beakfull. To open them apart, they grasp them in their feet and start pecking at them to open the shell, the way they do with acorns. Chickadees and titmice do pretty much the same thing, so the jays look like some huge chickadee mutant, being so gentle when grasping the seeds but pecking them in such a violent manner.

Jays play an important role in the ecosystem. They feed primarily on the acorns of trees, and unlike most birds they don't eat them right in the spot were they were obtained. Instead, blue jays actually take the acorns with them and eat them several yards away from the mother oak. In fall, jays bury many many acorns, but since I doubt they would remember where they were buried, many acorns go untouched and begin growing into new oaks. Entire oak forests are known to rely in the blue jay to perpetrate their expandment.

Jays are amongst the smartest of birds. They are members of the Corvidae family, that includes the most intelligent of all birds, crows and ravens. They are known to use tools to get to food, thus putting their level of intelligence right next to that of primates (I think we should reconsider the term "birdbrain", don't you think?).

Bully jays, they are nice and important, yet quite clever!

-Cristina

Photo: Blue Jay from USFWS

Shooing House Sparrows.

House Sparrows (Passer Domesticus) have spent this day happily gobbling black-oil sunflowers from my tube feeders. They came in a huge flock of about 15 sparrows, and fought over the 5-port tube feeder. The chickadees and titmice looked for some free port, and after hovering like hummingbirds around the feeder they gave up and decided to eat suet from the suet feeder instead. The sparrows gorged in seed, fighting over the feeder. To be honest, it looked like a humongous brown mass of feathers that had acumulated around the feeder.

  Seeing that the feeder would run out of seed in any moment, I opened the glass door that leads to the balcony in an attempt to shoo them away, and give some space to the other birds. I waved my hands and pretended to try to reach the feeder, and the flock flashed away chirping loudly. As if grateful, the chickadees looked at me and then at the feeder, and thus resumed their meal. I looked at them for a few moments, then went back to mind my own business.

 Ahh, but those house sparrows aren't dumb! Noticing that I had dissapeared, the flock flew back to the feeder and gorged in seed once again. After scaring them away a couple of more times,  they finally got the point that they weren't wanted and flew away to look for food somewhere else (Don't worry, house sparrows are known for wandering around cities looking for food, so they probably simply went to look for food to the nearby garbage containers).

  House sparrows were introduced to North America in the 1800's and since then they have spread all over the continent, to the detriment of native birds. House sparrows, alongside European Starlings (Sturnus Vulgaris) have caused a steep decline in the populations of many native cavity-nesting birds, such as bluebirds and red-headed woodpeckers. Even bats have been impacted by the sparrows. They are very aggressive, and are known to attack and sometimes even kill native cavity-nesters. Since the sorrounding ecosystems were not ready for the aggressive new invader, many species were affected by the introduced bird. Fortunately, many concerned people put out nest boxes for bluebirds and other cavity-nesting birds, and thus have helped some populations recover.

 Ironically, in their native lands of Europe and Asia they have suffered a steep decline, to the point of being listed as endangered in certain areas there.

I hope those greedy passerines don't come back tomorrow!

-Cristina

Photos: Female and Male House Sparrows from Wiki Commons