Baby Blue Jays

Bluecanoe · Post by **Bluecanoe** » Jul 05, 2005 4:15 am

This is the time of year that we get all the Blue Jay babies coming over with their parents looking for peanuts. We have a ball playing with them! Here's some shots I took yesterday morning.

LucyGoose · Post by **LucyGoose** » Jul 05, 2005 5:15 am

Awwww cute pictures of the babies!

Thanks!

Annie · Post by **Annie** » Jul 05, 2005 7:41 am

Great pics. Blue Jays are one of my very fav birds!! I love the color. I don't care if they are loud or obnoxious, I like em

PeggyC · Post by **PeggyC** » Jul 05, 2005 7:50 am

I also love the jays! Great pics!

Snow · Post by **Snow** » Jul 05, 2005 12:52 pm

I like Bluejays as well. They are a great early warning system for the other birds when predators approach (even if they sometimes fake it to scare the other birds away from the feeders

). What does drive me nuts this time of year is the way the new bluejay fledglings whine. It's all you hear outside now

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 05, 2005 2:51 pm

Yeah, they probably don't like hearing us human's whining about the weather every morning either!

They can be obnoxious, but still so danged handsome

Bluecanoe · Post by **Bluecanoe** » Jul 06, 2005 2:36 am

I just love the Jays, one of the babies was playing with two crows in my front Maple yesterday morning. I was a little afraid for him at first, then I saw that the Crows were humoring him by jumping from one branch to another while he dive bombed them. It looked like all three were playing hop scotch! A couple of years ago I watched two BJ parents playing with 3 babies, they went up and down one of the pines chasing eachother for a good hour. The parents looked like they were teaching the youngsters to hop fast up and down each branch. It is easier to catch the babies on film because they really haven't learned fear yet so they'll get close enough to snap them if you talk to them. Sometimes we've been able to tame a few that'll come over to play and continue to be friendly as they grow up, they stay for a couple of years and then we don't see them anymore and wonder what happened to 'goofy' or whatever we've named it. For a few years we had a whole slew of very friendly Jays that would even come to the windows looking for us, then one fall they all seemed to leave and that winter we just had two coming and a new flock moved in next spring, all fearful.

petal*pusher · Post by **petal*pusher** » Jul 06, 2005 10:25 am

Lynda! Those crows are looking for lunch! Crows rob bird nests of eggs and babies.....or grab any young bird that cannot escape them! Although VERY smart....not a bird I welcome to my yard!

My neighbors always comment whenever they see me out in the morning....with my son's slingshot....aiming rocks at those pesky crows! Hmmmm....maybe it's the nightgown!

I've become pretty good at scaring them away!.....p

Bluecanoe · Post by **Bluecanoe** » Jul 07, 2005 7:51 am

Actually, I love crows!! Really I do. I've been feeding a family of them for years. When we first moved in they drove me crazy, I'd never lived that close to a crow family before but they obviously have been living close by for many years. I've been here 21 years and they were already fully established when I moved in. Over the years DH and I have been able to gain a good measure of trust from them and when they see us they hop right over and sit above our heads and 'bow' a greeting. They know our car, know who comes to our house on a regular basis and will follow us around on walks. As for feeding on other birds, they aren't the only ones and not the worst offenders. Grackles are the worst I've seen. Sometimes a Grackle will snap the neck of a finch, sparrow or baby bird that just comes close to it, they don't even feed on the adults but will raid the nests for small babies. During a drought they've been known to kill any other bird that comes in to a bird bath. Blue Jays raid nests all the time, they're corvids like Crows. Ravens and Magpies. It's nature, we shouldn't be interfering in it. I used to get so upset when I saw a hawk staking out our feeders, now I just accept that they have to survive too. If nothing else, they cured the pigeon problem I suddenly found myself in a couple of years ago, never saw a pigeon for years, then the City of Montreal had some guy going around netting them out of parks downtown and setting them free out here on the West Island. I had a huge horde of maybe 30 birds hogging my feeders to the point of me considering to take them down. But last winter the local Copper's Hawk and Sharpies decided my property was the great place to eat. They left my Cardinals and Jays alone and picked off the pigeons..well looking at it, it makes sense, why eat a small bird when you can have a pigeon, right? I now have only 3 pigeons left.

oldcoot · Post by **oldcoot** » Jul 07, 2005 4:39 pm

Now that his Liliums are finished, and he can move the pots from under the bird feeders on his deck, he thinks he will just go back to seriously feeding the birdies and has a perfect place to put out some peanute..Wonder how it will take the squirrels to find them ??? John, that Old Coot...

The usually FUNNY and always most FRIENDLY Old Coot named John, a Gardener for the Lord, saying thank YOU LORD for his good friends that share and for the nice rain that has made all our plants grow so well this year

Hallson Gardens

Baby Blue Jays

Baby Blue Jays

Niced Bird shots