{"id":2209,"date":"2007-07-30T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/m-jay-h\/"},"modified":"2007-09-18T11:36:49","modified_gmt":"2007-09-18T17:36:49","slug":"m-jay-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/m-jay-h\/","title":{"rendered":"m jay h"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scrub jays show up in our yard frequently, sometimes one, sometimes three or four at once. When I see them, I put a handful or two of peanuts in the shell on a patio table. It is wonderful to watch them swoop in, perching on a wire or the back of a chair before landing on the table noisily, shaking its glass top, bouncing oddly to the pile, which is soon spread out by the fussy way a jay shakes each peanut — “no, not this one” — drops it, shakes the next, drops it, returns to the first, and so forth. If another jay is around, each becomes much less discriminating and just grabs and dashes. I rarely see them eat, though I have seen them hide nuts in the yard.<\/p>\n

\"scrub<\/a>This morning, an especially tattered jay moved in more stealthily than most. He eyed the empty table before flying to a dead tree in the middle of our yard. (Merri is right: this dead tree is a great perch for many birds<\/a>.) I thought he might bathe, but, instead, he dropped to the ground to forage among some plants. He returned to the same spot in the tree and flew in a different direction to poke among other plants. Eureka — he found one of his stashed nuts and flew to the top of the crabapple tree to peck at it before flying off.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, a much more assertive jay, familiar with the routine, demanded I put new nuts out. Minutes later, the remnants are scattered across the table. It’s the dog’s lucky day when one rolls off — he eats them, shell and all. mjh<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: See mjh\u2019s blog \u2014 Avis Habilis<\/a> for an account of birds learning from birds of another species.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scrub jays show up in our yard frequently, sometimes one, sometimes three or four at once. When I see them, I put a handful or two of peanuts in the shell on a patio table. It is wonderful to watch them swoop in, perching on a wire or the back of a chair before landing … Continue reading m jay h<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}