On a beautiful fall afternoon, I was outside power-washing my driveway. The power washer is a rather noisy piece of equipment, but somehow I managed to hear a faint scrabbling above me (perhaps it was both the noise itself as well as the odd direction from which it came). I look up and saw this:
Now before you get some notion of me being some magical animal magnet, know that I’ve been feeding blue jays every morning outside my front door for the past few years. However, I won’t usually toss them anything when I’m in the back yard working, especially at that time of the day. And when I do, the blue jays will always remain high in the trees or on the power lines, well away from me. But this particular blue jay not only recognized me as the peanut dispenser, but worked up the courage to get that close. Perhaps he been trying to get my attention, but thanks to the loud power washer wasn’t having any success, so a more drastic measure would need to be attempted.
Given that I was able to snag this picture of him, the blue jay was not skittish at all. In fact, as I turned my attention to him, he became more courageous, dropping down from the top of the backboard to the top of the support pole:
I can’t quite reach up and touch of the top of the pole, but I could get close; that’s how near he was to me. Of course I rewarded this courage, and tossed him a peanut (yes, I always carry some with me).
He flew away to a neighbor’s yard, where after some extension planning, buried the peanut in the lawn and placed a leaf over it to make sure no one else would find. Then, seeing me still there, flew back for more:
I wasn’t able to capture him burying the peanut on video, but here’s a series of pictures that takes you through the process. First, he hops around until he finds a good spot….
Then he shoves the peanut into the ground (this may take a couple of attempts)…
…and then he’ll take a nearby leaf and cover the treasure trove so that nobody else will be able to find it. Given that he knows by now I won’t take back the peanut for myself, he’s gotten comfortable enough to bury it within viewing distance.
The process repeated itself at least five or six times, then he finally ate the peanut. Then, alas, the welcome interruption was over, and I had to get back to power washing.
