Prior to moving here I had never met a Stellar Jay. I had a few run-ins with a Blue Jay who thought I shouldn't be feeding the squirrel, chickadees or anyone but him. He let me know whenever anything came near HIS birdfeeder and then proceeded to chase them off. Even the squirrel relented.
I knew Stellar Jays were in this area but it wasn't until the peanuts started appearing everywhere I realized something was up. They were hidden in my plant pots, behind deck furniture, in the garden, on tree branches and everywhere you can think of. We had squirrels so I assumed it was them.
One day I went out to the garden and something shrieked at me. I looked up at my very first Stellar Jay. How could anything that beautiful have such a shockinly annoying shriek. It took a few visits for me to realize it was protecting a nest in my Cedar tree. It was also taking peanut hand outs from one of my neighbors and stashing them in my yard.
I keep fresh water out because it is very much a desert if not watered so I get many different kinds of birds and animals so she was welcome.
Over the next few weeks I got to know her routine and we put up with each other then once the babies were gone I never saw them again.
This year I've been home more and doing more gardening and bird watching. They must have chosen another spot to nest in because they weren't around until about a month ago. Then the peanuts started appearing again so I purchased my own bag and left out a handful every day.
My daughter came to visit and we were sitting out in the yard when I saw the shadow swoop over my head. First came the shriek then two more. She was right above my head so I went in and got some peanuts. I set them out by the water and she came immediately to grab some.
When she took her first one she zipped up the tree and said, "caw, caw, caw." just like a crow. So she's bilingual apparently. I told her she wasn't a crow and she flew away carrying her peanut. She tried to stash it in a tree but it kept falling and by the time she got back to the peanuts another Stellar Jay was there. The two began shrieking at each other and flying at each other like an attack. I picked up the peanuts and separated them so they could each get some. They'd continued their battle in the tree for awhile but their shrieking allerted some Magpies and a whole family came to see what was going on.
It turned into quite a brawl so we just left. I'm not sure who won but I know the Magpies don't really like peanuts in the shell, I think they were just bored and looking for trouble.
The whole point of this story is that the Stellar Jay is bilingual and whenever I feed it peanuts, it speaks in Crow language and says."Caw, caw" Those Corvids are way smarter than we think.
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