March 18, 1962 - The Blue Jay
The Blue Jay
Exclusive Sunday Review Sketch by Dennis Puleston of Brool haven
Focus on
Nature by Paul Stoutenburgh
Webster defines a villain as
follows: "One capable or guilty
of great crime: a deliberate
scoundrel. "How well this fits our
noisy but beautiful blue jay.. Al-
though many of us hold a high
opinion of him as a welcome visi-
tor to our feeders, most of us
must agree that he is a villain
in every sense of the word.
To start with, he has a glutton-
ous capacity for food and is
never satisfied with one or two
sunflower seeds from our feeders.
It's more like he must have five,
six, seven or eight seeds to fill
his pouch before he takes off, only
to hide his loot and return for
another load. Perhaps this trait
of hiding food is a helpful one
in the long run as he l i k e s,
acorns, beechnuts, etc, and by
hiding them he accomplishes a
needed seeding program each
year. •
In no time at all he has cleaned
our feeder of the choice seeds,
leaving only the crumbs for the
shier birds. To add insult to in-
jury, when all is gone, he will
actually come down and scold in
the.,most atrocious jay -like way.
It- is well indeed that the calls
of the birds and beasts have not
been translated as yet for surely
we would be shocked to hear his
remarks.
Noisy Alarm
This noisy jay alarms the whole
woods as a slinking cat or fox
enters his domain. On a quiet
winter's day you can. hear the
screams and calls for great
distances as he comes upon a
drowsy owl sleeping the day away
in an evergreen thicket. These
calls are picked up from far and
near as the rebel call musters
every jay for attack. Soon the
poor owl 'is besieged by dive
bombing tactics and war hoops
loud enough to wake the entire
wood. Closer and closer they get
until the owl, completely un-
nerved, gives up his solitude and
flies off with all in . pursuit.
Outside of being a glutton at
our feeder, and one who never
seems to be quiet, (the exception
being during nesting time) the
jay has one other trait that per-
haps puts him on the blue —
no black list of all naturalists.
This is the habit of stealing
other birds' eggs or later on
kidnapping the young. His repu-
tation for this villainous action
is known throughout the land and
the other birds know all too well
the results when Mr Jay is on
the prowl. .
I myself will vouch for h i s
attacks for last year I was forced
to shoot at one as he raided my
martin house. It had taken me
three years to get a thriving
colony of martins to take quarters
in my two -story house and I
wasn't about to lose them to any-
one. So, when on that morning
I saw a commotion about the
house, I went over to check. A
jay had flown from that general
direction as I approached but not
seeing anything I could not be
sure he was the cause of the
great alarm. Knowing his reputa-
tion, however, I made it my busi-
ness to keep a •close watch on the
house and the 'following morning
I again. saw the martins frantic-
ally milling about. Ordinarily dur-
ing the course of a day four or
five birds would be all that would
be seen at one time but not the
• whole colony was diving and mill-
ing and calling for help. They
did not seem to have any plan
of attack but-merely milled about
calling an alarm that stirred not
only the martins but other birds
as well.
Kidnapper
What was going on I could not
tell from where I stood and so
moving to the other side of the
house I looked up and there I
saw a jay, just as he flew off
with a martin. That was all I
needed and so I ran to the house
to get my trusty old "rat" gun
and proceeded to stalk the jay.
When I got close enough I put
the gun to my shoulder and fired.
My only reward was a few
feathers and a half -eaten three
day old martin. Front then on
I was on continual guard this
proved unnecessary for the one
shot seemed to keep the j a y's
away for the rest of the demon.
The only other occasion that I
witnessed their crimes was once
many years ago when I saw one
take the eggs from a robin's nest.
Here again the cries of the robins
brought others about but for some
reason, the jay went about his
evil task without too much
interference.
' Yet even with all these black
marks against him I cannot
truthfully dislike the bird, f o r
when winter comes and most have
gone south, I am grateful f o r
his call in the winter wood s.
True I do not think he is wel-
coming me. as I enter his domain,
but nevertheless his call adds
cheer to the lifeless woods.
Nesting Time
As I mentioned earlier, the jay
is noisy throughout the year ex
cept during the nesting period.
Then he keeps almost completely
out of sight as his mate sits
quietly on her nest. I had the
pleasure of photographing the jay
some years ago in the top of an
evergreen tree some 25 feet up.
It is my belief evergreens are
usually selected by the jay as
they afford a more unobserved
approach to the nest. Whenever
the bird came to feed its young
it would never fly directly in as
a robin would but could be
counted on to work its way from
tree to tree. Iimb to limb until
it finally popped up at the nest.
Then the .how would begin. I
almost chuckled out of the blind
when I saw tIle feeding procedure.
Evidently berries were on t h e
menu but one could not tell this
to see the adult bird. For, unlike
the robin that carries the worms
outside the bill, the blue j a y
carries his food inside. Like
some magical trick one would see
on the stage, a berry would pop
out of the adult bird's mouth,
seemingly from no where, only
to be placed in an open, mouth.
This magical trick seethed almost
endless as each berry popped out
and was put in its proper place.
Nature Photography
The capacity these birds must
have in their pouch is incredible.
It is this pouch -like affair that
accounts for carrying away the
hoards of sunflower seeds we men -
tioned helve. When the day was
over I had only taken six photo-
graphs but they made one of the
nicest series of color and life one
could ask for in nature photo-
graphy. The white and blue mark-
ings of this bird at close hand
are exquisite.
When I show these pictures to
my friends I somehow seem to
forget the many villainous acts
that this scoundrel is so well
known for but then isn't this true
of all life? It's the good, t h e
pleasant, the happy memories
that the human mind has been
developed to remember and its
these memories that most of us
think of when we think of the
blue jay.
FIELD OBSERVATIONS
L R Ernest reports:
Mecox — March 4
Killdeer (1)
Wilson's Snipe (4)
Marsh Hawk
Canvas Back (6)
Southampton — March 4
Short -eared Owl (4)
Shinnecock Hills — March 5
Woodcock
P Stoutenburgh reports:
Greenport — March 10
Continued on Page 3M