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We have a bunch of bird feeders hanging on Shepard Crooks near our house. I see cardinals & blue jays flying on past regularly, but they rarely stopped for a meal. Then I started leaving piles of oil seed on the flag stone wall just past the feeders and now the cards & jays love to stop!
The rapid expansion of the eastern hardwood forests after the retreat of the glaciers may have been enabled by the jays activity.
And they're really good tree farmers:
"Carter and Adkisson found a germination rate of 88% in beechnuts taken by blue jays, whereas there was a 10% germination rate among beechnuts the researchers randomly collected from the same trees. Blue jays appear to test the nuts by holding them in their beaks or shaking them. Those that they deem unworthy are simply dropped to the ground." !!!
I think Blue Jays and Cardinals are just too big and heavy to perch on a hanging feeder....
Had the same issue. Both birds started coming to larger, stationary feeders.
Imagine how they'd make those hanging feeders swing with their weight....if they could even find a perch spot.
Yep, partly because of their weight and size they are a little less maneuverable than a smaller bird when clinging. Probably why they forage more on the ground in general. If they need to take flight in a hurry having the solid fixed surface under them makes that easier. A swinging feeder absorbs the force and gives them less "pushoff".
Good to know. I'd have repped you again but I have to spread some love around so this +1 will have to do.
I didn't know that they planted trees either and that helped solve a long time mystery for me. I looked it up about our local western jays (we don't have Blue Jays on the west coast) and discovered that our west coast Steller's Jays, Gray Jays (aka Mountain Whiskey Jacks), crows and magpies all do the same thing. They all plant tree nuts in the ground, and they hide big caches of nuts and seeds. And they're all corvidaes, so I guess it is a corvidae habit. Now I understand why it is that sometimes we come across solitary, lonely coastal Garry Oaks growing high up in the mountains miles away from the Pacific's shorelines and in other isolated places where they ordinarily wouldn't be found so far from the ocean.
Coyotes were originally a desert/plaines species and weren't often found east of the Mississippi R. They weren't documented in Ohio until 1919 (!)...as wolf populations declined, coyotes seem to have filled the niche in the 20th century east of the Miss.R.
Coyotes were originally a desert/plaines species and weren't often found east of the Mississippi R. They weren't documented in Ohio until 1919 (!)...as wolf populations declined, coyotes seem to have filled the niche in the 20th century east of the Miss.R.
I just saw the first coyote in my area months ago. At first I thought it was a dog, not having seen one before.
Unfortunately it was rabid.....staggering and literally foaming at the mouth. He slowly wandered off before animal control could arrive to put him down. I hope he quickly died, seemed so pitiful. But now I know they are here....
Coyotes were originally a desert/plaines species and weren't often found east of the Mississippi R. They weren't documented in Ohio until 1919 (!)...as wolf populations declined, coyotes seem to have filled the niche in the 20th century east of the Miss.R.
Wish they'd do a better job on the white tail which seems to be causing as many traffic mishaps here as those who text while driving.
We have a bunch of bird feeders hanging on Shepard Crooks near our house. I see cardinals & blue jays flying on past regularly, but they rarely stopped for a meal. Then I started leaving piles of oil seed on the flag stone wall just past the feeders and now the cards & jays love to stop!
The rapid expansion of the eastern hardwood forests after the retreat of the glaciers may have been enabled by the jays activity.
And they're really good tree farmers:
"Carter and Adkisson found a germination rate of 88% in beechnuts taken by blue jays, whereas there was a 10% germination rate among beechnuts the researchers randomly collected from the same trees. Blue jays appear to test the nuts by holding them in their beaks or shaking them. Those that they deem unworthy are simply dropped to the ground." !!!
The scrub jays around here will carefully examine peanuts in the shell, before they make their choice. They lift them and give them a shake, checking their weight. I've given them filberts in the shell and they will bang them against the feeder, to listen to the nut rattling inside. Once, I deliberately culled-out a dozen dud filberts, with no nuts inside. When I put them on the feeder, to see what would happen, no jay ever carried off a single one. Then, one large jay came along and tossed them all onto the ground.
Interesting, is how a few jays will relate to squirrels. My nut feeder is atop a 7 foot tall greased pole. The squirrels know what's up there, but can't climb it, if I re-grease it every week. But sometimes, a jay will toss a nut down to a waiting squirrel, perhaps revealing some cross-species agreement?
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