Blue Feathered Friends

There appears to be social component to our jay interaction beyond food.  One day I was leaning over some plants to water them.  I felt a light shove on the small of my back.  I turned to see RJ sitting on a small redwood branch bobbing his head.  He ignored the nut I offered, and watched me for a short while.  He then continued with his jay business. Some jays will sit with me for twenty minutes, watching the world without showing interest in food.

 I begin this journal in December 2009.  We met RJ in the summer of 2005 when we believe he was a yearling.  Laura and I live in a house whose only foundation is along the front edge, and the remainder of the house hovers above a steep hill propped up by six telephone poles.  Live oaks surround the house and the small back porch puts us eye level with the oak canopy.  We place a small dish of seed on the porch railing to attract chickadees, titmice, towhees, finches and jays.  RJ came for the seeds like the other birds, but was considerably bolder than the others while we sat on the porch.  Laura started moving the dish closer to where we sat, and that slowed RJ down only slightly.  Once the dish got within arms reach, RJ became more hesitant.  So Laura upped the ante by putting out an almond.  After a lot of patience, Laura had RJ taking raw almonds from her hand. 

April 2.  We have new cups for the shell game.  Jimmy has come a few times to play in his own way with his own rules.  He knocks over every cup and usually is not satisfied until they've all fallen off the table onto the deck. 

April 17.  Pica has been off her nest the last few days, visiting every feeder and water source in the yard.  It is great seeing her so exited.  RJ had been hauling lots of almonds and seed back toward their territory, but I'm sure she got bored.  She played the shell game about 20 times, seemingly not caring which cup held the nuts.  Just play! 

April 28.  RJ and Pica are building a nest in the oak next to our house.  Don't know if they lost the other nest, or the fledglings are being left alone more often.   I'm pretty sure they are across the street  in the ravine.  RJ has started playing the shell game after watching Pica play it a zillion times.   He soon learned that a nut was under the green cup, and that is the only cup he goes for.  We put a small piece of tape on the side of the new cups as a "handle".  He picks the cup up, and sometimes carries it to the porch banister and sets it down there.  Jimmy still plays the shell game his way, knocking over every cup and then following up to knock most of them off the table. 

May 6.  Shadow is off her nest.  Visited me on the hill and landed on my hand while I was eying the kite nest through a spotting scope.  I'm glad I don't flinch as much when that happens.  Flip is also back, catching nuts. 

May 18.  First sighting of jay fledglings.  Three or four in the wilds.  I think they are Shadow and Flip's, I saw a few chase Flip after he flew back that way with a just-caught almond.   While I was out in the garden Laura called down that I had left the game set up and Jimmy had knocked them all over.  I soon heard a noise from up on the porch and looked up to see Jimmy had returned and was now flying with the red cup across the yard.  He took it to the neighbor's yard across the street near his territory.  If you set up the game, don't neglect it.  As I'm writing this the game is set up.  A jay comes and starts playing.  It is not Pica or RJ and lacks Jimmy's beak. I then guess it is Jimmy's mate (who recently started pecking the top of the cups).  Just as I guess this, she pecks the top of the red cup.  Then grabs the tape handle and knocks it over.  She then grabbed the cup and flew it across the street to her territory while I sputtered dumbfounded.  She stole two cups!   

May 19.  Laura named Jimmy's mate "Linsey".  She returned today and promptly stole two green cups, carrying each across the street.   

June 3 2011. Shadow and Flips fledglings are spending more time in the yard.  Flip chases every other jay out of the yard when he is around.  He meets me in the yard, on the porch and on the hill to catch nuts.  He's really hooked on catching them.  From the hill, I toss them high and out over the downward slope.  This is fun because the nut stays airborne longer as Flip flies after it.  Shadow has been coming to the porch a bit and will usually come for at least a few nuts when I'm on the hill.    Since they are mates, Flip does not chase her.  But he will steal her almonds if she lets him watch her hid them.    RJ still plays the shell game a bit, but only takes the nut from the green cup.  He still places the cup on the porch railing sometimes.  Lindsey plays the game a lot, and usually goes for the two correct cups, though sometimes she knocks them over randomly.  She has stopped stealing cups.  Her distinctive technique is to push the first almond back to her craw so she can close her beak enough to lift the tape on the next cup.  Pica always places the first almond back on the table before trying a second cup.  Jimmy has been scarce.  He came by on the 1st to play a few rounds of the game.  And he landed on my arm for two nuts.  After taking the 2nd nut he continued to just look at me.  Then he went after my finger.  Not hard, but enough to test if it was "available".

July 5.  The yard has become a jay kindergarten of nine or ten fledglings.  Flip no longer chase other jays away, though there is a whole lot of chasing going on.  Mostly kid stuff.  Flip and Shadow meet me on the hill for a few visits each time I go up.  Sometimes Flip will sit in the tree above me on the hill for twenty minutes, watching the kite chicks with me.  And Flip comes to the porch a few times to catch nuts, though not with the intensity of early spring.  Lindsey plays the shell game once or twice a week, but when she plays she cleans me out of almonds.  Jimmy visits infrequently, but seems comfortable landing on my arm when he sees me in the garden.  RJ finds me in the garden and on the porch.  He'll play the shell game once in a while.  He's spending more time at the front of the house in the oak where they built the nest.  They don't seem to have chicks there.  He sometimes drops twenty-five feet from that tree, straight down to my shoulder.  Fortunately he rustles the branch a bit before dropping so as to not startle me too much.

August 20.  I have not seen RJ for over three weeks.  Shadow visited us on the hill last week after a long absence and seemed very excited to see us.  After taking several nuts she landed on my beer bottle, toppling it onto my leg.  My quick grabbing the bottle startled her and she screened a bit from a nearby tree.  I don't recall ever hearing her scream.  She came to me once in the garden this morning.  I miss seeing her and RJ.  Jimmy and Lindsey come to the porch and play the game once or twice a week.  Flip comes to a tree in the yard now and then, but only rarely will chase a nut.  Seems to watch me for a while, then he finds some seed.  The other day while Laura painted on the porch a jay sang her two beautiful whisper songs.  It skittishly took a nut from the railing.  Not likely to be RJ.  Maybe PBJ came for a visit?  Pretty Bird?  Someone new?

September 2011.  The new bird appears to be one of this years fledglings that made herself known primarily though long screeching sessions.  She squawks in the garden while bathing, while eating, while hunting and while hanging out in the wild roses.  She never really showed any interest in me, but now, out of the blue she has started to land on me for almonds.  My guess is she is a child of Shadow.  If I'm sitting, she'll land on my leg and aggressively seek out any almond I might be holding.  In the yard she lands on my arm without hesitation.  However, she seldom returns for more almonds after getting one or two.  She is quite pretty, loud and has a nice singing voice, so Laura named her Janis.

It seems Janis might have a substance abuse problem.  Last summer I patched our decomposing deck with spackle and a thick coat of paint.  Janis has found several of these patches and is mining the spackle, forcing me to put down a layer of masking tape over the spots.  During September and October she appeared a few times a week.  Jimmy and Lindsey also visited a few times to play the shell game.  No sign of RJ. 

November.  This is often a very slow time for seeing jays.  I can sit on the hill and perhaps hear a few in the distance, but seeing them is uncommon.  One Saturday while sitting on the hill I heard a jay call down toward the wild roses.  I walked partway down the hill through the trees, stopped and whistled.  A jay quickly appeared in an oak just in front of me and have me several exaggerated head bobs.  It was not immediately apparent who the bird was, and after a short while showed it an almond.  It did not react, but continued to watch me and changed its branch a few times.  Another jay appeared next to it and they started to chatter in their soft barks.  The second jay flew to another oak.  I guessed that was Shadow and the first jay was Flip.  I tossed an almond high over the tops of the oaks and Flip zoomed out to grab it just as it started falling back toward the ground.  He flew to another tree and Shadow returned.  I put my hand out and she flew to it and took two nuts.  Then they both disappeared into oak crowns and did not reappear.  I saw them both on another Saturday morning on the hill.  This time Flip came to where I was sitting, caught a nut and disappeared.  Shadow soon appeared, landed on my knee for two nuts and disappeared.  No sign of Janus during November. 

December 11.  Through last weekend, I'd see Shadow and Flip for a brief visit about once a week.  They'd take a nut or two and then disappear.  Yesterday it was if someone threw a switch.  I walked up to the hill and Janis was hunting bugs from the arm of a chair.  Flip was hunting in a nearby oak.  Janis just sat on the chair watching me and the canyon, occasionally flitting out to grab a bug.  After a while she flew to my lap and took a nut.  Flip barked from the oak above me and Janis flew down the hill to her haunt in the south neighbor's yard.  Flip barked again and I tossed a nut forty feet up and he grabbed it.  He returned about ten times, in fairly quick succession.  Shadow came many times and Janis returned one.  In terms of landing and seeking nuts, she is the most aggressive jay we've know.  Shadow chased her away and then returned for several more nuts.  This morning I returned to the hill just as the sun rose over the trees and shone through a break in the clouds.  Within twenty seconds, Shadow was on the arm of the other chair, bobbing her head.  She flew to my hand and soon Flip was at his usual perch.  Flip chased at least twenty nuts, catching all but one.  He hid them all nearby and was often back at his perch within twenty seconds of catching the previous nut. Janis flew up the hill with an acorn and id it nearby.  She then flew to my arm.  When she sees a nut in my hand, she goes right for it and will burrow her head into my closed hand.  The next time Janis returned, Shadow barked and chased her through some trees and around me.  Janis landed on my head three times during the chase.  The last time, Shadow landed on my had while Janis watched from her perch on my head.  I'm fairly sure that Janis is Shadow's offspring.  Flip does not chase her much, and when Shadow chases her, she seems more intent on keep Janis in her place.  After breakfast, Jimmy came to the porch and landed on my arm for two nuts.  A little while later I noticed Jimmy and Lindsy near the porch, so I took the game out.  Jimmy wrecked the joint as usual, but then stayed away while Lindsy tried to gather her nerve to play while I sat there.  She only knocked over one cup in several minutes of hesitantly approaching them.  So, I went inside and watched from the window as she knocked them all over and took the two nuts.  I reset the game and sat down outside again.  She soon returned and proceed to play as if I was not there.  Soon, she was returning every thirty seconds to play another round.  I hid nuts under the pink and blue cups, which is different than the summer colors.  She appeared to be randomly selecting cups -- except for the blue cup which she hardly ever touched.  After a while. Flip and Shadow came to the porch.  Flip chased several more nuts.  He really seems to enjoy the game.  For example, if he is late getting to a nut and can't grab it before it hits the ground he just pulls up and returns to the branch, even though the nut is plainly visible on the ground.  Also, sometimes if he does not get a clear look at the nut during its initial flight, he'll just sit there and watch it descend to the ground before looking again at me as if to ask for another toss.

December 18.  Another fine time on the hill with Flip, Shadow and Janis.  Shadow came within a minute of my sitting down and hung out on the other chair for several minutes, bobbing her dead and watching the other birds of the canyon.  Flip came to his spot in the oak.  Shadow gave her soft bark greeting, and Flip caught a nut tossed high out over the hill.  Shadow flew over to my knee for two nuts.  Soon, Janis came flying up the hill into the clubhouse oak.  As I looked to see if Flip had returned, she landed on my hat and peeked at me from the brim.  I put out my finger and she landed on it.  I guess I was too slow with the almond because she took a couple of good hard pecks at my thumb.  Very aggressive jay!  Shadow returned several more times.  On Flips third visit he caught a nut and returned to his perch with the nut in his beak.  He adjusted it toward the back of his beak while I asked him what he thought he had in mind.  He adjusted his perch as he does when ready to fly after a nut.  With great doubt I tossed a second nut, and sure enough, he grabbed it.  He returned a few more times, catching a single nut, not pressing his luck.  Janis returned, flew from an oak onto my finger, took a nut and hopped onto my head.  She sat there for about a minute before flying back down the hill.

December 24.    This morning at 7:30 while I distributed seed and knocked the ice out of the bird bath, flip came and caught a nut.  He could not see the first toss in the dim morning light, so he tried a different perch and grabbed the second nut on its decent, about a foot above my head.  I do like these jays. Mid-morning I went to the hill and Flip did his two nut trick twice more, catching almonds while holding another almond in his beak.  On the second go, he tipped the almond and had to chase it down.  Which he successfully did before it hit the ground. Near noon, Shadow came to me in the garden and landed on my hand for a few nuts.  She chased Lindsey three times.  Lindsey had been hanging out in the oaks, pecking at an almond. 

2012

January 19.  The last three weekends have been a very nice routine.  I go to the hill as the sun rises.   I spy Janis in the pine down the hill and Flip on an oak off to the north.  Janis lands on my hat, then hops to my finger for a nut.  Once, she flew from the pine directly onto my finger.  Flip and Shadow appear, bobbing heads and looking happy.   Sometimes they take their first haul back to their territory, but soon they just cache the nuts close by and return for more.  Shadow tolerates Janis until Janis comes to me while Shadow is hanging out on the chair.  That leads to a protracted chase and the ouster of Janis -- at least for that morning.  After breakfast I set the shell game up on the porch.  Usually, Jimmy and Lindsey have been by the porch a few times by then to collect sunflower seeds.  Often, one hears the door and comes right away.  Lindsey will sometimes pick the right colors (now pink and blue) several times in a row.  Other times she knocks them over in random order.  I made a mistake and placed a nut under the green cup instead of under the pink.  She paused and looked at me after knocking over the pink cup and finding it empty.  I really think she knows, but likes knocking the cups around.  Sometimes she'll knock around cups that she already has knocked over.  Jimmy comes about once for every five of Lindsy's rounds.  And he still plays the game his way: knock everything over randomly.  Sometimes he'll interrupt Lindsy after she's taken one or two nuts.  He'll knock around whatever is there, and if he does not find two nuts, he then hops onto my leg and takes a nut from my hand. 

January 29, 2012.  This weekend had only a few visits on the hill.  Shadow and Flip would come within a few minutes of my arriving.  She'd take two nuts and disappear for the day.  Flip would catch a few nuts and then gone.  Janis came several times.  And twice she flew all the way up the hill nice and low, straight to my finger.  Flip and Shadow take their nuts two lots north, across a road.  An unknown pair of jays have been hunting and playing to the west, between the hill and the house, and the "scrub house jays" appear to be staking out the area to the south east.  It will be interesting to see how Janis and her mate hold up when the nesting territory posturing starts getting serious.

February 26, 2012.  Last weekend the hill was a huge party of at least twelve jays.  I went through two bags of nuts in one morning.  The porch was active as well, with Lindsey and Jimmy playing the game.  Lindsey played at least ten rounds, taking nuts from the correct cups first, and then knocking over other cups just to do it.  On one round, she was not able to settle the first nut into her craw enough to close her beak to grab the tape handle on the cup.  So she set the first nut on the table and then grabbed moved the cup to get the second nut.  But she moved the cup onto the first nut.  Too bad the video was not running.  Yesterday was relatively quiet.  At 7:30, I could see Janis and mate on the tall pines south of the hill, and Flip and Shadow on pine tops two lots north.  I returned at 9:30, and Janis was sitting on my chair.  She jumped onto the oak, and then onto my head as I sat down.  She stood on the brim of my cap for over a minute.  I could only see her talons curled around the edge of the brim.  Finally she hopped onto my finger and took three nuts.  Flip must have seen this, because he was soon in the tree ready to chase nuts.  He returned three times, and each time he caught a second nut before flying north to cache them.  Shadow came for one visit.  I think they are getting ready to nest.  Janis returned again and tried to take a third nut while perched on my finger.  One of the other two fell and landed between my feet.  She hopped down and tried to grab the third nut, resulting in another falling from her beak.  The next attempt caused the two nuts to fall.  She kept at it for no less than twenty attempts in about thirty seconds.  Finally she flew off with just two nuts.  Janis's mate still sits high up in the oak watching.  When flip lost a flying nut in the sun, Janis's mate quickly flew down to grab it off the ground.   Usually Flip and Shadow tolerate this bird, but sometimes after catching  a nut, Flip will circle back and land right next to it -- giving a squawk, and sending the other jay flying.

April 26, 2012.  Shadow came to the hill this evening for her first visit in almost two months.  She came twice and Flip cam several more times.  I'd only seen Flip about once a week, and then only for one toss.  Janis was gone for about two weeks in early April, though her mate continued to join me on the hill.  I now call him "Slim".  He'll hunt a tossed almond on the ground (but with limited patience), and seems to prefer sitting in the tree above me.  Janis continues to land on my head and sit on the brim before hopping to a finger to get some almonds.

April 28.  Flip came to the porch several times and chased nuts I tossed far out into the clearing between two oak crowns.  It sure appears like he enjoys himself.  Shadow came to the hill a few times, and knocked over another beer.  Someday I'll learn she likes that perch.  Janis flew to Laura's head many times.  It seems to be the chair. 

May 26.  A wonderful month of jays.  Shadow has been coming to the yard and the porch quite a bit.  Some weekends I'll hand out a hundred nuts.  Jimmy, Lindsy, Shadow, Flip and Janis are the most common visitors.  Only Lindsy and Jimmy play the shell game.  Slim has come to the porch a few times and has even taken a nut from the arm of a chair.  We thought Shadow might be losing sight in one eye because she ignored an almond Laura offered her.  We soon concluded she see's just fine and has decided that the darker shade of almonds is not worth her time (they seem older and drier).  About a dozen jays coming to the yard in the mornings.  I get a chance to hand out nuts and toss several to Flip before work.  We've started handing out unshelled peanuts in addition to almonds.  They are a big hit.  Jimmy and Janis are able to get two in their beaks.   Janis will sometimes work at it for quite a while.  This morning Flip caught a peanut, though it first bounced away from his beak.  

July 30 Janis rules the hill.  When I walk up the hill toward the chairs, she will often see me from down the hill in the neighbor's yard.  She'll ladder up one of their tall pines and then glide over into the clubhouse tree behind me.  After a short while (so I'll forget she is there), she lands on my head, hops to the brim of my hat and does a few big bobs.  Our friends visited us earlier in the month and Janis performed by landing on both a mother and daughter, taking a peanut from each.  An unknown jay has been grooming the deer in the garden.  And a jay from across the street has started to challenge Flip for tossed almonds

November 10.  Starting in August, Janis and Slim started driving Shadow and Flip off the hill.  Over the months, Shadow would sneak to the hill a few times for a quick nut.  I'd have to distract Slim by tossing an almond down the hill.  Shadow continued to come to the garden.  Flip became a bit scarce, though he'd come about once a week and catch one almond and then fly back up the hill.   Janis and Slim relia bly visit us on the hill.  Some mornings she'll take just one or two, and sometimes sits in the club house tree behind me for long periods of time.  This morning she was a hound, taking a couple dozen peanuts and hiding them not far from me.  Shadow also took a pile of peanuts,  and Flip caught about fifteen almonds and a few small peanuts.  The video above shows her caching peanuts and cleverly disguising their location through placement of leaves and sticks. Janis has grown very protective of the hill area, aggressively chasing away Shadow and Flip.  And now it appears that Shadow and Flip are aggressively protecting the garden and porch areas.   Back in RJ's day, those areas were mostly treated as neutral.  RJ, Shadow and mates seemed to have tolerated each other in the yard, as well as other jays that could visit for seed or nuts.  I only saw them get aggressive with other jays when those other jays seemed to be claiming the territory (such as with Bobby and Squeaky).    Now, whenever I see another jay enter the space between the house and the garden, Shadow or Flip soon are chasing it away. 

November 17 2012. Shadow has begun visiting the porch while we are inside.  She sits on the railing watching us, as RJ used to. Sometimes she'll perch on a chair next to the glass door.  This morning she did this after receiving a dozen peanuts in the garden.  On her third visit to the porch, I went out and she perched in the oak just above the porch.  The morning rains had not yet soaked one of the chairs, so I sat down and we both listened to the frog celebrate the rains for fifteen minutes until the renewed drizzle drove me in. 

2013

Feb 18, 2013 Sitting on the hill, Janis perched on my finger, sifted through a small pile of peanuts in my hand, and found none to her liking.  She saw a 2" centipede a few feet away, grabbed it and returned to the chair next to mine.  After playing with it a while, she laid it along the top of the back of the chair and returned to my finger.  Finding the same meager pile of peanuts, she then spied a 3" centipede and grabbed that and returned to the chair next to me.  After killing that, she carefully laid it next to the other, looked at me for a bit, and then garbed both bugs and flew off.

March 1, 2013 Both Janis and Shadow have become picky about their peanuts. Sometimes they'll pick one out, weigh it, and then deliberately drop it on the ground (rather than back into my hand.)   We now have a new jay that comes to the doors and windows and patiently waits for someone to come out and play.  It won't come near us, and tries to chase the other jays away.  The others mostly ignore it, or will come to us and and laugh at the upstart who is afraid to get to close to us.  She catches some nuts on the wing.  And is very chatty.  She does not yet appear to have a mate.

April 27, 2013 Shadow is off her nest.  I'd only seen her once since mid March.  Janis has been off for a couple weeks.  Shadow comes to the porch and visits me in the garden.  Sometimes she sits on branches near me for extended periods.  The jay that Laura dubbed "Misty" still comes around, but not as much and she no longer tries to dominate other jays.  She has become a pretty good nut catcher, (and she has a good rattle).  Jimmy has been watching Janis and Shadow pickup and drop peanuts that they don't find acceptable.  So he started doing that -- but it seemed he would just drop a peanut for the sake of  doing what the other jays did.  When offered a large and a small peanut, he instinctively grabbed the large one.  Then he dropped it to be cool.  And then looked disappointed that the only nut left is a small one.

May 30, 2017 About ten jays are often in the yard gathering seed, some for their fledglings who have yet to make an appearance.  Catching on the hill has been great, with many good competitions.  Females seem to be off their nests.  Lindsey is catching a lot.  Janis comes to the hill, but has long absences, maybe tending fledglings?  She ate two almonds off my finger this last weekend. No sign of Bent Wing for three weeks.  Miss her.  A new jay has taken her role on the hill.  Gray has come within a few feet to take nuts.  But sometimes she does not come for a day or two.  When she does come, she seems to like to hang out nearby and hunt bugs.  Yesterday a jay was cleaning a doe laying on the hillside.  Jimmy's character is rich and enthralling.    He comes to the window most mornings, meets me in the garden about half of them, and hunts bugs in my recent grass cuttings.  He and Lindsey are busy keeping the numerous other jays in their place.

June 25. Eleven fledglings gathered seed beneath the feeders this morning.  Very little parental interaction besides the usual chasing.  A few remain or come when I'm in the area, but they mostly bolt with the pigeons and stay away until I leave.  Janis took many dozens of nuts this weekend.  Jimmy came around many times, and Lindsey caught a lot more than usual.  Fledglings approaching the porch or the hill get chased off.  Gray still comes to the hill.  Withstood an attack on the porch and found a almond.  No sign of Bent Wing.

July 15. Probably the chattiest group of fledglings we've ever had.  There are two or three who constantly exchange squawks across the street and into the wilds, like Janis's first summer x3.  One of the younger looking fledglings started coming near me in the yard, initially hanging out close by while hunting bugs and gnarly old acorns.  A few weeks back it reluctantly took an almond from my hand, which was near the ground, allowing the jay to hop to it.  That repeated a few times over several days, then it landed on my arm to take one from my hand. It would not return twice in the same day, except to linger nearby and hunt -- very much like what PBJ used to do (though PBJ never took a nut from my hand).  This morning it hopped onto my knee to take an almond from my hand while I sat near the path to the garden.  Shortly thereafter it flew 20 feet to land on my knee.  It came a third time and persisted long enough to get two almonds into its beak.  This afternoon it flew to our porch railing while Laura and I were sitting.  It took two almonds from Laura's hand, after rearranging their sequence to fit both in its beak.  And it came back a while later for another. I think it is the smallest jay we've interacted with, all gray on the head but for a very small patch of bright blue.  For now, it is Squirt.  No sign of Gray in two weeks.  Nor Bent Wing.  The flycatcher pair have two chicks in the front porch eve.  They mostly stay within about 50', perching, catching bugs and feeding them to the hatch-lings.

July 22.  The Squirt now flies from a tree to my finger without seeing any nuts.  It usually takes time to load two almonds into its beak, and has tried caching them locally, but some adults don't even wait for its back to turn to make a grab for the nuts.  A far cry from the Shadow's pilfering Juniors nuts.  Jimmy chases Squirt when Jimmy comes to the yard, but the chases are short and not at all like the relentless chasing of his rivals.  There remain about ten fledglings that spend a lot of time in the yard.  The adults visit, but squabbles are few and brief.  Very few catchers on the hill.  Janice found me yesterday while I was washing cars.  She took a peanut and did not return.  She and Slim will sometimes only visit me once in several trips to the hill.   And Jimmy's visits to the yard and porch are limited.  Hawk warnings are fairly common.  This morning while I was on the path, an alarm came from up the hill.  It seems the sentinels are still watching over the kindergarten.  

Flip caught a peanut from pine near the path, and then cached it within an pine code halfway up the tree.  He caught another, laddered up and flew to his territory.  I've seen Janice cache in her pine as well.   In each case, doing so saved vertical travel because hills bring the altitude of the tree location roughly equal to the height of the source or destination of the flight.

The fly catcher parents are comfortable enough with me to feed their chicks while I'm on the front porch.  (The two fledged the following day.)

August 5.  Janis came by for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Once on the path and once on the hill.  About six catchers on the hill, and Flip and Lindsey on the path many mornings.  The squirt comes to the path a few times each weekend day, and still lands on my finger without seeing nuts.  Today it sat on my head for a few minutes and took several pecks at the cloth grommets in my hat.  The blue on top of its head is coming in nicely.  Flip continue to cache nuts up in the pine tree.  The height of the cache is the height of his territory (roughly), so perhaps he is saving himself vertical climbing.  A second parking lot woodpecker has started competing to catch peanuts.

August 20.  Scarce jays at home.  The Squirt will often come for one or two almonds.  I've seen Jimmy and Janis maybe three times in four weeks.  Lindsey will sometimes come to catch from the path in the morning.  This morning there were no jays on the hill.  On my second visit, Janis eventually perched at the top of her pine and bobbed several times.  After a while, she flew to the clubhouse tree, from which she called several times.  This brought Slim to the top of their pine.  I put out my finger and Janis flew to it.  She called twice while ignoring my offered peanuts.  Slim called back, and she immediately flew back to their pine.  The both sat there for a while, and then she flew up Harper a bit.  Squirt came to the porch several times this afternoon, and a few times to the path.  He's getting a handsome blue head, and flies to my finger with only moderate jumpyness.    Two woodpeckers continue to catch nuts at work.  One jay flew to my hand a few times to take a peanut in a hit-and-run.   The other jay catches, but is now down to maybe 25% success.  And a third jay comes to where I'm at, but shrinks back from tossed peanuts.

September 3.  Very scarce jays at home.  We were on vacation for a week, upon return it took a week for any jay I know to visit.  Yesterday Slim and Flip came to the hill to catch a single peanut each.  Then I saw Jimmy & Lindsey land in the redwood across the street.  They both bobbed several times then flew over.  Lindsey caught 3, and Jimmy played the cup game six times.  No sign of The Squirt.  It broke 110 yesterday, lots of panting birds and deer.  A few jays at the bath, no idea who they are.  I think I saw Janis from the hill this morning, but jays came around.  Back to a single woodpecker catching nuts at the office parking lot.  One jay has taken from my hand a few times, and two are catching -- trying anyway.

November 26.  Good weekends with jays at home.  A few good catching competitions over the last few weeks. Several of my visits to the hill will bring Flip once or twice.  And then after a while a bunch of others will show up.  Some days Janis comes once or twice to the hill.  Same with Jimmy.  Two days ago Jimmy played his game twenty times on the porch, with Lindsey coming around to catch.  This morning I encountered Janis on Harper Cyn road and she came for four peanuts.  She even peeled on on my finger.  This is the first time one of our jays interacted with me outside the yard.  The parking lot jays both caught several this previous week.  One of the two seldom catches, so that was a change.  One woodpecker is catching -- but that  is only a few times a week.  They seem to be overwhelmed with acorns.  At least two of them drop them into crevices in the cement facade of our office building.  I suspect this is to deprive competitors of food.   

We have known Janis for six years, and Jimmy for seven.

December 17, 2017: No jays in the yard or on the hill in four visits.  A few calls across the canyon.  This morning I was on the hill 20 minutes with no sign, then Flip flew down and caught one.  That got Janis & Slim's attention, where ever they had been, and soon one of them was on their tree top.  A few minutes later an up-canyon jay caught one, then Janis & Slim flew over.  Soon there were five jays in the tree waiting to catch, and Jimmy came twice.  After about thirty nuts, they nobody returned.  Parking lot jays are catching fairly well.  The woodpecker only appeared once in three days last week.

2018

May 27.  I have been putting off making this entry.  I have not seen Jimmy in months.  At the start of nesting in February, he was around, and doing battle on the southern flank of his territory.  There was quite a bit of back and forth among several jays, and Jimmy would find me and drop by for a quick nut in the midst of it all.  Things eventually quieted down and all the females disappeared onto nests as usual.  Males continued to find me on the hill to catch, and Janis (as usual) would cheat off her nest to visit.  But no sign of Jimmy or Lindsey.  There is a bit of evidence that they simply moved territory away from us.  Several weeks ago I started leaving the cup game out as a candle in the window.  Two weeks ago I woke to find that  the correct cup (green) was toppled, yet the peanut was left there.  That can happen if the jay is rushed.  The next day the green cup was again the only one toppled, this time the peanut was gone.  I've left the game out since, with no results.  Other than Jimmy, the other possible jay is Bent Wing, who knew the right cup color but had not played in almost a year.  I miss Jimmy more than I would have ever guessed.  I knew him almost eight years, since he was a fledgling who was nothing but beak.

Flip has been spending a lot of time in the yard, not just catching on the hill.  He likes to sit close to me and catch short tosses, cache them quickly, and return.  There is a lot of posturing on the hill, and sometimes in the yard.  I think Slim and Flip have been working to keep transient males at bay.

The woodpecker at the office parking lot has not appeared in months as well. I originally thought that was due to nesting duty.  The male jay continues to catch, batting about .500.  The female has appeared a few times, and seems rusty.  There is now a crow that follows me around like a shy puppy dog.

June 3.  Lindsey is still around, at her old territory.  She catches and arrives with a new guy.  I first saw them last week, he would call while they arrived, but she did not rattle.  I tossed her nuts and she beat him to them.  Over the days she give him more of a chance at the nuts, so I mostly stopped tossing when he was there.  I wanted to see what he might do.  Yesterday she started rattling for him when he'd take a nut off the table.  They now seem a pair.  His is contesting the yard with Flip.   They have pecked the hell out of many oak limbs, engaging in that jay proxy fight.  Flip and Josephine hold their own in the yard.

Got the new guy to hop on my leg, though he is too shy to take the nut off my knee.  He hangs around for long stretches, sometimes on the porch railing, rather peacefully.  Until Janis comes around, leading him and Lindsey to bark a bit.  He chaser her in the yard, but she knows to just come to me and he backs off.  Lindsey plays the puzzle box, sort of.  She just pecks every which way until something shifts.  

The green cup (and only that) was turned over again this morning while I was doing yard work, and the peanut was gone.  Someone is playing more than the cup game. 

July 28.  Kites have a nest in a little box canyon off Harper.  Can see the tree but not into the nest from our house.  Good views from the road above canyon.  Saw a jay perch just above the nest while the female was sitting on the chicks.  It peered into the nest for about a minute, but did not see any treats worth risking it for.  Good catchers on the hill. And lots of visits from Janis all over the yard.   This morning a bunch catchers all disappeared at an alarm.  Slim flew low and fast from the catching oak to his pine.  Several jays just melted into the catching tree.  After about ten minutes, a new jay who comes to my chair hopped to the edge of the tree, and then down to the next chair for a nut. It flew fast and low across Harper to Penrose's (its territory).  As soon as it made it past Harper, two other jays bolted from the catching tree and zipped up the canyon flying low.  Then the coopers hawk left the clubhouse tree and circled the canyon a few times.  I felt like I was in a foreign city where I did not know the language.  

Oct 28 2018.  Loads of catchers coming to compete on the hill most weekends.  And several catchers came to the porch most of the summer.  But the porch has been quiet that last several weeks.  I no longer see Lindsey & LBJ.  She had been spotting me from the redwood across the street.  I've not seen her there in weeks.  Other than Janis, the only jays who comes close is the one from Penrose's across the canyon.  It will not get any closer than the arm of the next chair.  And it is an aggressive garbage collector when peanuts are dropped.  Trying to get it to understand the cup game.  Not a lot of luck. This morning about eight jays came to catch one, then disappeared.  Janis came once.  Yesterday was about the same on my first trip up the hill.  Many more catchers came the second time up. 

2019

April 28.  Janis used my head as a hunting platform yesterday after I cut the weeds on the hill.  She got distracted by bugs in the cut grass several times while sorting peanuts.  After a while she put peanuts aside and focused on hunting, grabbing a bug and returning to my head.  Some other females seem to be off the nest as well.  Good catching on the hill.  Very few birds in the yard since the sparrows starting leaving in March.  All about nests.  Bluebirds nesting in the titmouse box on the hill.  They seem to hunt a lot in Janis's tree.  Jays at work have been scarce except for one hand-feeding male.   He greats me on my rounds, along with the crow that follows me expecting me to tuck a peanut into a tree crotch or light post base.  A differnt crow at the parking lot has caught 3 nuts.  The other crows cower from the throws.

July 2.  A new neighbor cut down Janis's tall pine.  She comes around just as much.  It may be mostly my loss, in that her flight from that tree top to my finger was one of life's great joys. She and Slim are dividing time between two of the taller oaks -- with one being along Harper, a long flight to my hill.   Lots of catchers on the hill and on the porch.  And Janis meets me in the morning several times a week before I'm off to work.  Jay fledglings were late coming to the yard this year.  There are about five.  No obvious hand feeders, though Janis did not declare her intentions until later in the year.  Our Fly catcher is feeding her second brood of hatchlings on the porch.  Notch, Almond and their gang walked up to me at the bench last weekend and treated me like someone they could turn their back on.  It was bittersweet because none of the three does had surviving fawns.  But their yearlings looked healthy and sharp.  Lots of coyote in the yard recently, and neighbors reporting the puma.

The parking lot jays at work have shuffled.  No catchers at my car or the building entrance since nest time.  A hand feeder is mated with a catcher in an adjacent territory.  I assume the catcher is the female who must have moved to a new mate.  No idea how the "new?" male became a hand feeder.  I know of two other folks who've hand fed jays on campus... or maybe he is one of my old hand feeders.

July 27.  Very slow jay traffic at home.  Janis and Slim will usually come for a few, and some catchers.  But way down from June.  This morning a yearling buck walked up behind me on the hill.  I tossed him a peanut and then a cookie.  And then there were eight deer and a fawn standing around me.  Notch was in the mix.  I limited the number of nuts and cookies.  Janis came to me twice while they were there.  After about five minutes they moved on.  Notch's eye seems to be clearing up.  While on the bench two hen turkeys and seven poults walked from the wilds to the fountain.  After a few minutes the hens trotted back toward the wilds with the poults in tow.  I thought they had just noticed me, but playing back recent sounds in my head revealed a couple loud crow caws.  Not a mobbing call, but not just social either.  The hens stood at the edge of the wilds watching in the direction of the crow.  It reminded me how often the eminent arrival of fox and coyote is announced by crows.  After five minute the poults got bored and they all roosted on a low oak branch for a nap.  Janis came to the fly-up window and shelled a peanut on Laura's hand.  She has been shelling a lot lately. 

August 29.  Still slow jay traffic.  Janis comes as least once if I hang out long enough.  She very much likes the pine nuts I started to offer.   The parking lot hand feeder whistles at me.  A very different vocalization than I've ever heard from a jay. Notch the doe and her crowd have been spending time with me.  They get pretty close and are less jumpy than before.  Notch has a drooping lower lip that may be an injury.  Looks very uncomfortable, but she eats and has clear engaged eyes.

October 12.  Lots of jays the last 3 weeks.  Slim has disappeared, a new male took his place before I noticed. Very chatty when catching.  Started out slow on catching, but picked it up quickly and is now pretty close to the top.  Calls before, during and after a catch.  Most vocal jay I've known.  Janis comes a lot, all over the yard.  Lots of catchers on the hill.  A few on the porch.  Puzzle-Box comes to the bench and sits with me a lot.  Takes a peanut off the top of the feeder while I'm a foot away, but no closer.

Notch's lower lip has recovered nicely.  She still drools but seems comfortable.  A buck with two pencil erasers was sniffing around, and brushed up against me twice while chasing Notch and her female yearling.  One of the Toro eagles did two loop-the-loops while doing the climb-stall-dive-climb.the feeder with me standing there, but not if my hand is within 2 feet.  Jays at work still find me on the walk -- one catches (even very short tosses), the other hand feeds, but does not linger.

Nov 3. Still lots of catchers.  Janis visits a lot.  Her new mate still screeches like a banshie.  And is quite aggressive, particularly against the cross-canyon jay that takes nuts from the arm of the chair.  Puzzle boy comes to the bench and likes to just hang out. His mate catches a lot from the porch.  Notch walked up and licked my had a few weeks ago.  And took a cookie from it.  She has not repeated that, and is back to coming to about two feet of me when I'm just sitting or standing.  Parking lot catcher is great at close quarters, and able to track and catch a nut as it ricochets off branches in a small dense tree.  The hand feeder hit me up four times on a walk the other day.

2020

January.  Janis came to the window this morning while I read the paper.  I went toward the sliding porch door to retrieve the peanut bag and she flew to the porch.  I crossed back to the window at my seat and she flew back.  Laura was sleeping so I quietly slid open the window and extended my arm out with a finger as a perch.  She flew to my finger and I extended the other hand which held several peanuts for her to sort and select from.  As she sorted, she came upon a small peanut with a cracked shell.  As is often the case, she took the opportunity to try to shell the peanut, thereby getting the shelled one into the back of her beak while also taking  one still in the shell.  Cracking the shell can be loud, and protracted so I reached my arms further out into the 40 degree morning air.  She took four trial whacks at the cracked nut, holding it against my finger in her talons.  She then decided to return to sorting through the other peanuts.  After picking up and shaking several, she returned her attention to the cracked one, and gave it several more whacks.  Then back to sorting the other nuts.  This repeated twice more before she made up her mind to attack the cracked in earnest.  Shell pieces started to fly, and that attracted two of the sixteen turkeys who've adopted our yard.  They scurried below us with the hope of falling treats, and started to call.  It was getting loud, and cold.  Janis finally extracted two halves of the one peanut.  With the two halves in the back of her beak, she returned to sorting the others.   While picking up every other nut, she would lose one or both halves of the shelled nut and would have to put down the other nut and restore the shelled ones to the back of her beak. She finally settled on her selections and flew off, leaving me cold and shaking from stifled laughter.

January 26.  While I was walking up the hill this morning, Janis landed on my head.  As she hopped down to my finger, Screech flew into a tree above us with his signature call.  Janis responded with a nice long rattle that ended in a funny whistle.  A jay rattling while perched on my finger is a rare treat.

February 18.  The previous weekend was pretty typical.  This weekend was an upending.  Saturday morning I noticed that Screech was nowhere to be seen.  Cross canyon jays were flying to and fro across his and Janis's territory with no concerns, where typically Screech would chase them or make them take the long way around.  Janis seemed fine, and came for several nuts throughout the day.  On Sunday there was no sign of Janis.  And it seemed the entire neighborhood of jays was in turmoil.  I had never seen such screeching and flying back and forth.  A few catchers came, and each screeched as they flew back to their territory.  Many screeches elicited rattles.  Monday morning and early afternoon was pretty much the same screeching, rattling and chasing, but with more catchers.  And no sign of Janis.  Monday afternoon we played cards on the hill.  Janis flew to my finger after we were there over an hour.  She took a nut, flew past the clubhouse tree, and she did not return.  Laura reported periods of turmoil on Tuesday.  Will see what Saturday brings.  She's been part of our lives for over eight years.  It is hard to imagine the hill without her.

February 23. Another pair of jays seems established in Janis's old territory.  Janis came to a few times yesterday, from north east.  She looked up with concern when another jay called while flying overhead.  And she was chased a few times.  It is very odd to see her on the receiving side of aggression.  I cannot tell how far away she is staying, or if she has a territory.  For now, she has the part of an intruder.  But it is wonderful to see her.

March 7. Janis has been reestablishing her position on the ridge over the last few weeks.  She has been coming quite a bit for peanuts.  Last week she was still being chased, but today she came over a dozen times with the only adversity being flushed out of a sage bush into which she went to crack a nut.  She seems more at ease, and cracked four peanuts on my hand.   She seems to be mostly coming from the south east now, just below the neighbor's house.  Her new approach path results in a lot more landings on top of my head.  She was the first jay to greet me this morning.  And she even caught up to me as I was going back down the hill and landed on my head for a final nut.  The cross canyon jay and his mate still control her old territory.  He still calls each time he catches a nut, and she usually rattles a reply.  However they seem mostly resigned to her being in the area.   A lot of good catching competitions today.  Many jays are still somewhat vocal, but things seem a lot more settled.

March 14.  Janis came about 20 times this morning.  She called a few times while flying back to her new territory, and even flushed the cross canyon jays out of the catching tree.  She no longer gives the sky a weary look when other jays fly in.  She may even have a new suitor.  The cross canyon jays are doing their ritual of always traveling together.  Even when it means returning to the catching tree with one of them already having peanut in its beak.   Things seem to have settled after a rather upsetting month.  My hero, Lesley the Bird Nerd,  sums it up nicely:  "Jays get emotional."

March 23. Other jays appear to be on nests, or otherwise occupied.  Janis comes to the hill frequently.  She sometimes sits on a chair with us and just watches the world go by.  Her suitor follows her a lot, and chatters.  With shelter-in-place going on for a while, I should be able to determine if they are going for a nest.

April 5. Almost no corvids for over a week.  Janis's suitor comes to the clubhouse tree and is keen on taking nuts back to Janis -- but the nuts must be tossed a good ways away from me, preferably under the tree in which he is perched.  Puzzle Boy and his mate come to the yard to hit the feeders and the puzzle box.  A red squirrel is figuring out the puzzle box.  First Oriole yesterday.  Chickadees being fed in a nest box.

April 16. I had not seen her for several weeks, and figured she was on a nest.  She had been coming to my hand frequently to sort through peanuts and almonds. Lately I've only seen her new mate, the third one in six months.  I've no idea what combination of predation and territorial treachery terminated the last two.  This one's a shy boy who has yet to ask for any name other than Suitor.

This morning I tossed a nut under Suitor's clubhouse tree, where he could get to it before the crows spooked him away.  As he grabbed it, she swooped through the tree and alighted on my head. The slight pressure of her exaggerated head-bobs pulsed through my hat for a moment before she dropped down to my finger.  Not to be too chauvinistic, but I know my girl and she was looking quite hormonal.  Instead of her usual OCD sorting for the right peanut, she grabbed the closest one and paused, fixing me with one eye.  She then set about  shelling it against my finger.  

Up until this morning, those delightful occasions in which Janis shelled peanuts on my finger have invariably involved her first sorting out a flawed nut with a crack.    Now she had her talons on a rock  solid product of Georgia, and she was not going to change course.   It took ten good whacks to  pierce the shell.  Still no fault lines appeared, leaving her to carve out enough of a hole to pull the nut  through the skin.  She set that nut in my palm with the other unshelled nuts, and returned to drilling out the other nut from the shell.  While pulling that out of the shell, the nut cleaved and one half fell to the ground.

She place the other half against my finger and proceeded to peck at it and consume the bits as they broke off. When only a quarter of the half remained, she paused and puffed out her feathers.  Then she looked at me and then looked about.  Then she did nothing for a minute.  She finished the nut and hopped to the ground to grab the second half and flew with it into the clubhouse tree.  

Suitor was out of sight and she stashed the nut in a branch of the tree.  She flew back to my finger, grabbed  the first shelled nut, and was about to add an unshelled peanut to her beak load when Suitor called. She flew off like a shot past the clubhouse tree to where I'm guessing they have their nest, leaving me grinning and grateful.

April 18.  No sign of Suitor or Janis since the previous entry, until this morning.  She met me as I was climbing the hill. Though it was a cold morning, she must have been in a tree top to have seen me approach.  She took a peanut and flew down to an oak on Harper Road.  Suitor followed.  After a few minutes she flew east along the road to another tree, again followed by Suitor.  A bit later she finally circled back to her nest area.

April 22.  Janis has come for a nut once each of these last few days, always flying back to Harper road with Suitor in tow.  I have no idea what she is up to.  One of the crows on the hill is a crack peanut catcher.  Two others have qualified as competitors, though they still sometimes act is if the peanut may be a fire cracker.  Others come from all over the canyon to garbage collect.  They may pick up on the fun of catching.

May 3.  Janis and Suitor seem situated in an oak down along Harper.  She'll fly to me a few times a day for a nut, but not nearly as often as other times of the year.  I cannot tell if she is on a nest.  I've never gotten the impression that she stays on one for long.  Today she flew in fast and screeching with a female oriel on her tail, which turned tail as soon as she got within twenty feet of me.  I imagine Janis was threatening the nest they have in the palm tree on the corner.  I felt awkward being the sanctuary for Janis after she was busted for attempted predation.   I heard a gang of fledged oriels tonight.  A chatty lot.  They'll be dispersed in a few days.  Puzzle Boy comes to the porch to play the cup game.  He still plays like Jimmy did.  He'll also find me in the garden and take nuts off the feeder, or catch.

The squirrel below displays the dance performed when it outwits me and gets a peanut from Puzzle Boy's puzzle box.

May 15.  Janis has settled into few or no visits each day to the hill.  But when she does come, she usually peals a peanut and then consumes it using the edge of my hand as an anvil as she pecks away at the meat of the nut.  Twice this week I have been covered with peanut shell bits.  Catchers are beginning to return and compete -- though they usually leave after one or two catches.  The crow catchers are improving, and there have been a few crow/jay competitions in the space between the clubhouse tree and the catching tree.  Notch has a fawn, "Uncle Leo".  They both walked right up to me within days of Leo's birth.  

May 22.  A new jay has been hanging out in the lower branches of the catching tree.  It bounces around within a cubic yard of branches, playing peek-a-boo.  This afternoon I tossed a couple peanuts just below its perch.  Eight times the bird dropped down to the ground in a quick grab for the peanut, coming up empty.  Never has there been such a nervous jay hanging around.   Twice it dropped to the ground some feet from the peanuts and acted as nothing was happening.   Such total jayishness! "I'm just here, I see no food, nope, I'm just here.  Maybe I'll hop over here a bit, but not looking for or seeing food.  Oh no.  Nothing to see here."  Then a mad lunge toward the peanut, only to again come up empty beaked.  Many  scrub jays do this form of deceit.  Never approach food straight on, or even let on that you have something in your sights.  The only variations are the level of nerves at the final grab.  

Uncle Leo is coming around with Notch.  The first week, Notch kept him hid most times.  Now its about 50-50 whether Notch will be alone when I see her.

May 27.   

Notch and Almond are sharing baby sitting duty.  Yesterday Almond came to the yard with Uncle Leo and her own fawn, which looks a few weeks older than Uncle Leo. They spent some time near the fountain and Almond did some foraging.  After a while they wandered off to the wilds and out of view.  Ten minutes later I finished work and headed for the hammock.  On my way I saw a doe in the wilds with ears up, looking at me.  I gave two clicks in greeting and opted for the bench.  Within a minute Notch came trotting over with Uncle Leo in tow.  While Notch got some peanuts, the fawn sprinted around, and at one point ran across the creek bed, up the hill toward the road.  It stopped at the roads edge and I looked at Notch, who seemed calm and unconcerned.  Leo came tearing down the hill, pulled up short of the bench, and then did it again.  Soon,  Leo got bored and wandered off toward the wilds.  After a few minutes Notch followed the fawn and I went for the hammock.  Ten minutes into my repose, Notch returned alone and settled down on the path in front of the bench.  She worked on her cud.  I on my beer.

Today I went out afer work around 6:30 and saw Janis a few times on the hill.  Crows come from all over the canyon.  Some of them are graceful catchers.  Some of them still think it may be a firecracker.   I headed down to the bench and after fifteen minutes I saw Notch and Leo at the edge of the wilds foraging.  I gave her a click and they soon joined me.  Today Uncle Leo was much calmer, watching the birds and drinking from the bird bath.  At one point, Notch was getting a few peanuts and drinking from the fountain when Leo wandered around the backside of the large salvia.  Notch looked up and could not see the fawn.  She scanned the area in a split second and then gave two low grunts.  I could just see Uncle Leo's head over the salvia, and his ears perked right up and he trotted around the bush to the his mom and a short drink of milk.  Notch foraged some more while Leo explored.  Notched passed me on her way back from foraging the creek bed, took a peanut, and they wandered back to the wilds.  Notch has a couple of open cuts on her neck and a nasty abrasion under one eye.   The trials of a mule deer can take all the empathy you can conjure. 

May 30.  Notch has found me on the hill the last three days.  As with the other times, she was alone this morning.  I was not aware she was behind me until I heard her breathing.  She'll stand a few feet away and give me doe eyes to get peanuts, which I drop on the ground for her.  She is terribly far-sighted and does best when her nose can lead her to the nut.  When Janis is on my finger picking through nuts, Notch approaches much closer.  This morning, her nose was three inches from Janis' beak.  Yesterday morning Uncle Leo was on a solo safari in the garden, drinking from the bird bath.  I saw no sign of adult supervision.  The previous day I saw Notch, Almond, their two yearlings and their new fawns all together traveling and foraging as a herd.  Notch's cuts and abrasions appear to be healing cleanly.  Lots of jay catchers this morning, and crows.  They mostly keep to their respective trees from which to catch.  Some throws result in inter-species competition.

June 7.   Janis has been finding me as I work in the yard, and hoarding peanuts.  A few times she cached them a few feet from my feet.   A crow has started following her about, looking to pilfer peanuts.  She is sill heading down just across Harper as home base.  The shy jay is still coming to the bottom of the catching tree -- not developing much courage.  We saw the first jay fledglings in the yard on Tuesday.  Puzzle Boy and mate appear to have two or three mouths to feed.  Notch and Leo come around almost every day.   Leo is foraging quite a bit.  

June 14.  For several days earlier in the week, as soon as I'd leave the house to walk up the hill,  Janis would come to me en-route, and then not return.  The last two days she has reverted to hording mode.  She watched me sawing up wood (hand saws provide a better critter viewing experience) and stashed fifteen nuts within thirty feet from where I'm was working.  The shy jay, we call him Shy-boy, is still coming to the hill.  He is losing his inhibitions in spurts.  Janis chased him a few times, and tolerated him a few times -- even while he tried to poach one of her poorly stashed peanuts.  Yesterday he got very close to Laura and I, and took a peanut off my foot.  Today he was much shier, but likes hanging out.  Fledged jays are still begging food off  parents, but a least two have figured out the feeders.  None have noticed peanuts, or me for that matter.  They are starting to spread through the yard.  Likely more than just Puzzle Boy's 3.  A great year for baby birds of all kinds.

June 21. Janis remains in semi-hoarding mode.  Finds me everywhere.  She has been driving Shy Boy off the hill.  He's taken peanuts off my leg and knee, but remains quite jumpy.  He also likes the puzzle box.  The 3 fledglings roam the hillside, usually together.  One was practicing her rattle.  She located a cracked peanut I tossed.  Took it to a stump to peck at.  Led to a sibling fight.  Same jay came within a foot of my hand after seeing Janis take a nut while I was on the garden bench.  Notch and Leo came around twice with a few yearlings.  I spent 20 minutes nodding off in the hammock with Notch laying down working her cud 6 feet away and Leo doing the same on the other side, about 15 feet.   The two turkey moms seem comfortable bringing their poults near me.  That seems to have followed their observing 4 deer hanging out quite near me.  Blue birds from the titmouse house have fledged.  Chickadee parents are frazzled and harassed beyond belief.

July 3. Catchers seem to have taken a break, but have played a bit more that last few days.  Shy Boy finds me on the hill, porch and garden.  He won't yet come to my hand, but seems ok with the leg and knee.  One of this spring's chickadees is taking peanut bits from my hand.  A few times each of the last three days.  It's siblings come close, but don't make the jump.   Notch came to the bench today and then started grazing near the creek bed.  I noticed her watching something behind me.  It was a large buck with big velvety antlers.  The buck circled around to the bird bath and drank.  Notch circled around behind the buck and sniffed its butt.  Then then both wandered off, going their separate ways.

July 8. One of this year's chickadee brood now lands on our hands for pine nuts.   Beans first got to trust me down on the group W bench.  Now it also finds us on the porch, sometimes landing on the window screen to look in.    One of Beans' siblings has taken a few nuts, but is quite jumpy.  The others that fledged this year, and their parents remain weary.   Notch and some mix of does and fawns come around almost every day.  On Sunday Leo was whining a lot, a sound like a demanding meow.  He still whined a bit today in the morning, but by afternoon he was mostly himself.  Notch calls him with a low moan, close to the grunt from Selma Bouvier.  Shy Boy hangs out with me for long periods.  He's less inclined to come to my leg for a nut now, but will come close.  Janis mostly comes for one or two when we are on the hill.  The three jay fledglings continue to spend a lot of time in the yard, often calling back and forth for very long periods.  The come closer to me, seem to sometimes wait for me to toss a nut on the ground.

July 15.  Leo did not survive much past two months.  The last I saw him was Monday morning grazing in the wilds with Notch.  For the last several days he seemed weak and at times had trouble walking.  He fought though, he kept foraging and following Notch.  He was much smaller than Almond's fawn Pistachio, and Glam's Gazelle -- though he was older than Gazelle.  I suspect he did not get sufficient milk from Notch, who seems old and battle worn.  In addition to a litany of injuries and past maladies, she's had a cough for the last few weeks that can be rather startling. I saw Notch Tuesday morning (the day after I last saw her and Leo) and she had a 18" fresh scrape along her spine, about an inch or two wide devoid of fur with a slight laceration running along the middle of it.  A fence, perhaps.   She did not seem much different than she had the last week or two.  In some ways here spirit was better, not moaning as she had been in apparent concern for Leo's whereabouts and well being.  I think she'd been mourning Leo's fading for many days.  On Sunday, I got to spend some time with them, and napped in the hammock while Leo napped by the windmill.  He was obviously weak, but would rouse himself to Notch's call and start foraging on dried weeds, the value of which I cannot fathom any more than I can plumb the depths of the struggles of deer.  Even the sheltered suburban variety.

July 16.  I was visited twice today by Notch, Almond, and two yearlings.  Pistachio was not with them.   This evening, Glam visited me twice within an hour at the bench, as if she was on a circuit.   Notch was near me the second time Glam came around, and Notch let out a few low moans which I've not heard from her other than while with Leo.   I saw both of their fawns yesterday.  I fear predation.    It confuses me that Almond seemed so unconcerned, taking nuts and hanging out as had been typical.  Perhaps those fawns have been sleeping somewhere safe and my imagination is running wild.

July 17.  Spent time with Almond this morning, and saw the three does together without any fawns.

July 19.  Pistachio and Gazelle came through the yard yesterday with their mothers.  Where and how the does hide the fawns while they socialize is a mystery.  I thought that mostly happened during the fawn's first few weeks.  Janis's visits are less frequent.  Every other day.  Shy Boy spends up to 15 minutes hanging with me on the hill.  Beans the chickadee took several pine nuts yesterday.

July 25.  Many catchers this morning after many days of very few.  Janis comes once or twice a day to the hill.  She's not been to the porch in weeks, or elsewhere in the yard.  Beans comes when I call about every other day.  We've been seeing a lot of Notch, Almond, Stash and the yearlings.  Glam joined the lunch crowd yesterday.  No sign of Gazelle for several days.

.

August 4.  A big turkey battle today.  A group of about six were up the hill foraging while I sat on the group W bench.  Nine others crossed the road into the yard behind me.  One of those made a loud call I'd not heard before, and it was quickly answered by one from the group up the hill.  The larger group charged up the hill squawking loudly and the others charged down to meet them.   They collided with dust and feathers swirling while wings beat and chests smashed against chests.  Within ten seconds they had spread out, with individual fights and several chases.  The calls of a single turkey strutting alone on the edge of the battle field drowned out the other squawking.  Its feathers were flared, but randomly giving a disheveled effect as it jutted it head forward and back.  This turkey took about ten struts before it was ambushed from a tree branch, the attacker leaping and clawing at Braveheart's backside.   The battle moved further up the hill and soon turkeys were running amongst a group of deer who were laying down and chewing cud.   The deer could not remain aloof for long, and soon rose and trotted to quieter environs.    Ten minutes before the battle, I was sitting on the hill with those deer resting around me (including Stash and 'Zelle) .  Idillic scenes come and go.   Stash had a tennis sized growth on its cheek.  That came off about a week ago, and the half-dollar sized wound it left seems to be healing fine.    There are 3 other does with fawns who come through the yard alone.  I've not seen them with other groups.  They come to drink and then vanish.

August 15. Turkeys make an odd clucking sound when calling out a bobcat.  97 in the shade and I was in the hammock when visited by the full herd of deer, including the fawns Stash and Zelle. A turkey started clucking from across the road, which is about 20 feet behind and above the hammock.  The deer took immediate notice.  When a second and then a third turkey joined the clucking the deer froze and fixed their eyes on the ridge of the road embankment.  I craned my neck but could not see anything.  After about a minute more, it sounded like the turkeys were getting closer.  Then the deer bolted as one and were gone in an instant.  I looked back and saw the bobcat slipping behind an oleander.    The turkeys kept up their clucking so I walked up the embankment and across the road to where they now stood looking at the edge of a ravine.  I walked over and flushed the cat that had been hiding behind some fencing.  The turkeys quickly quieted and dispersed.   The odd turkey clucking sound is what got Laura's attention last year when she got the video below.  

While bobcats would not seem a threat to a deer, deer very much dislike them.  Some years back I came upon six deer near our stairs.  They were all looking up into an oak at a bobcat they had treed.  One of the deer turned to look at me and that created enough of a diversion for the cat to run for it, leaping down and sprinting across the road with two deer right on its tail.

August 28. Three days ago we returned from a week's evacuation from wildfire.  All was well with the critters, and it seemed we got a bit more attention.  Suitor sang us a long whisper song on the hill.  He's been coming to get nuts off the ground ever since.  No sign of Shy Boy yet.  Janis comes a few times a day.  Bean still comes to the porch and the bench for 1 or 2 pine nuts.  The deer got a treat from the kind folks who put us up for a week.  They don't like the lace lichen in their trees, so I brought home a large bag full, as seen in the video below.  Two days ago we had lunch on the hill.  The whole herd was laying there as we came up.  They rose and some hung around us hoping for nuts and horse treats.  After a little while they settled back under their shade trees to chew their cud and did not bother rising as we walked by them on the way down to the house.  Stash and Almond got some lichen this morning and then Notch came running up.  She took the lichen from Stash, but Stash came back twice to grab more pieces from the hunk in Notch's mouth, dodging a hoof in the process.   Notch has found me at least twice a day since we've been back.  Sometimes she trots toward me. And often she still grunts upon wandering away.  I had thought that grunt was only for her fawn.  

September 7.  Crazy hot the last 2 days.  Spent 5 days in Cambria prior to that.  Janis comes to the hill several times a day with Suitor.  This morning they both hung out for 5 minutes, she on her chair and Suiter on the low branches.  I've not seen Shy Boy since the fire started.  Puzzle Boy's visits are rare and he seems less interested in the puzzle boxes.  At the moment he is in the tree above me on the porch, ignoring tossed nuts, his puzzle box and a nut on the rail.  Very few catchers since the fire started.  Most days have none.   The deer herds have come through the yard a few times, but they do not linger.   A few Jane's with fawns come to the fountain.  Beans came to me when I called right after our return on the 4th.  But not since.

October 5.  Another hot smokey stretch, but clear and cooler today.  Janis comes several times to the hill along with Suitor.  The catchers are very wary of Suitor, and have been missing for days at a time.  Several came today, but only after Suitor came and left.  He returned to chase some around.  He remains unwilling to come within 8 feet of me.  Puzzle Boy is back to playing the puzzle boxes and taking peanuts from nearby.  His mate rattles at anything he does. No sign of Shy Boy.  The deer are well into their rut.  Not a lot of does around.  Two good sized bucks, one 20% bigger than the other, come through every day.  Stash and Zell have been by a few times.  I've not seen Notch in about 10 days.  Last I saw her she was a mess, but very happy and engaging.  The girl needs a shower.  Beans and his shy friends take pine nuts about every other day.  

October 17. Two fun trips to the hill.  Almond and her fawn Stash joined me for the first one.  They got a few horse treats and kept Suitor from getting his peanuts.  Janis came a few times.  A flock of bluebirds swirled in the canyon for a while, calling back and forth.  On the second trip, Shy Boy came several times, his first visits since the fire.  Suitor was in the tree when Shy Boy first flew in, but Suitor did not challenge him because he was six feet from me.  Shy Boy took a nut off the arm of the chair and flew up the canyon with Suitor hot on his tail.  Five minutes later, Shy Boy returned, but Suitor did not.  Lots of catchers played today, most in a very long time.  And Janis came 6-10 times.  The morning started with a mostly dry fountain and a group of sparrows wading in a few inches of deer backwash.  While I filled the fountain, Beans perched on a branch near my head and explained a few things to me.  Then he took a pine nut.  A Townsends warbler and the pair of kinglets came to the bath while I was filling the fountain.  Beans and one other chickadee now come a for pine nuts few times every day.  No sign of Notch.

November 20.   The crows have altered the dynamic on the hill.  While some of the crows have become expert catchers and seem to delight in the competition and challenge, a few others now fancy themselves highwaymen.  These characters position themselves to attempt intercepting jays as they return to their territories after catching nuts.  A crow will sometimes chase a jay all the way across the canyon.    The jays now divert their flights into trees and lay low util they can zip past the crows.  Janis often takes her nut to the catching tree and ladders up to the top, thus giving her a steeper downward glide path to her hangout along Harper and a better chance to outrun a crow.  There are fewer jay catchers lately, but now at least 4 qualified crows.

November 26.  The effects of crow highwaymen on jays depends on the jay.   When Janis takes a peanut, she reads the defense and may take it to the catching tree instead of flying straight across the canyon.  From there she'll fly toward her trees along Harper, but she keeps an intermediate tree available as optional shelter if chased.  Some of the catchers seem aware of the threat and circle back to the catching tree after catching a nut.  Suitor also seems aware of the threat when deciding whether to hop down from a low branch to pick up a nut rolled just outside his 12 foot fear zone.  In the absence of crows, Suitor nervously grabs those nuts (sometimes missing it) and flies immediately across or up the canyon.  When crows pose a risk, he refrains from coming down for the nut.  A grossly non-scientific observation is that Suitor is less likely to make multistep plans than is Janis.  

There are between 10 and 20 crows arranged to catch some mornings, with up to 10 in the air pursuing a tossed peanut.  The flocks in the canyon seem to be growing, preparing for the winter gatherings.

January 23, 2021.  Jays and crows continue to catch on the hill, though the crows now only rarely harass  jays flying back with peanuts.  Janis comes each time we are on the hill, sometimes only for one nut, other times for several.  Suitor is now an accomplished catcher and likes to announce his catches.  Shy-boy is a shy as ever, and now won't take a nut off a foot or the ground if  it is too close.  He still likes to hang out on low branches of the catching tree. Beans and a few other chickadees still come to our hands for pine nuts.  Beans finds me in the yard sometimes and calls to get my attention.  I wonder which chickadees will be around in  Spring.  The deer come around briefly, they seem to be finding the small amounts of plants the sparse rain has sprouted.   Real rain this week, which should help the foraging.  Stash and Zell are usually together.  They usually ignore me (not bothering to get up if lounging on the hill when I arrive), but sometimes seem interested in a horse treat.  Almond and Glam are often with them, though it is hard to tell them apart at a distance.

A new jay has hand fed twice this week.  She(?) lands on the chairs on the hill, usually right after Janis comes for a nut.  This morning she landed on the back of the chair just as Janis was making her final selection.  I left my finger and hand as they were and she made six passes at landing on my finger, and finally did a touch-and-go, grabbing a peanut.  She returned to the chair after stashing the nut, and ignored my hand.  Then she flow into the clubhouse tree.  When she comes to the chairs, she  seems relaxed and bobbing, and only seems nervous when offered nuts, or when Janis threatens to give chase.

April 4, 2021.  The does are looking chubby.  The local herd spends many afternoons napping in the wilds munching cud.  I'm unable to tell who is who and they mostly ignore me.  Several crows are quite accomplished catchers.  Puzzle Boy and Suitor come to catch most morning.  Janis has been coming less, maybe on a nest.  The new jay, "Puff", takes a peanut from my hand several times a week.  She is strictly hit-and-run, but quite friendly about landing on the backs of close chairs to say hi.   Bluebirds, tit mice and chickadees have been checking out nest boxes.  I think Beans is hanging out just across the street.  He comes most days for several pine nuts.  The other chickadees that used to come for nuts either moved on, or got shy.    Saw some turkey hens drive two yearlings away from grazing in the wilds.  A re-enactment: 

April 18, 2021. No sign of Janis or Beans for a few weeks.  Suitor still comes to the hill a few times a day and flies the peanuts back to where I'm hoping Janis is sitting on a nest down near the road.  Only a few chickadees appear each day, none of which seem comfortable with me.  I think the chickadee in the green roofed house is feeding babies.  Or perhaps still keeping the female fed on the nest.  It seems like a sparse bug year, not much in the way of oak moth larva.  The deer are feasting on new oak leaves, standing on their hind legs for up to 10 seconds.  They forage a few hours and then lay in the shade for a few and chew cud.  The crows are appearing in larger numbers to catch nuts, especially around lunch time.  In the mornings, 3-4 accomplished catchers find me as soon as I climb the hill.  Puzzle Boy and sometimes his mate are the only jays I see around the fountain.  There are still about 20 crowned sparrows, a few still come right to me expecting a piece of peanut.

May 6, 2021 Almond brought her fawn to meet me yesterday on the hill.  A fun drama queen.  Janis came for a quick visit yesterday and again today.  Suitor continues to come and catch a few when the crows don't intimidate him too much.  Bluebirds are feeding chicks in the titmouse box and chickadees are busy feeding chicks in the green roof next door to titmice being fed in an old box.  Crowned sparrows are gone.  The crow that had been cleaning out the circle puzzle is aback at it after a many week absence.

May 31, 2021 Almond lost her fawn, which always looked healthy.   She's spending a lot of time alone, though she spent some good time hanging out with me the last two days.  Glam has a fawn that is doing well.   No other fawns have appeared.  Beans appeared on the 7th looking haggard.  He took a nut from me and then another a few days later.  Now he and another chickadee are taking several a day.  Beans has at least 2 fledglings.  One of the titmouse parents will sometimes take from our hand as well.  The yard is swarming with baby chickadees, titmice, juncos and house/purple finches.  Janis and Suitor come to the hill quite a bit, and now Janis is finding me in the yard.  Several jays are catching from the tree, they need to beware of the crows, some of whom are getting quite fast.  Still a lot of crow catchers.  Puzzle Boy and mate still rule the lower yard and fountain.  They have two fledglings who spend much time in the wilds.  They come to the bath a few times a day but don't stay too long.  The palm tree next door is usually the location of an oriel nest.  This year a red shoulder hawk has two chicks in a nest in the palm.  Bluebirds fledged from the box and vanished.  All other boxes now seem empty.

June 11, 2021 Almond is back with the herd, leading it.  Stash is large, hard to tell him from 2 year olds.  Glam and her fawn come through rarely.  The red shoulder chicks are getting large and brown.  The hawk flew low past the window carrying a squirrel, so I ran out expecting a feeding.  The squirrel lay almost headless on our front steps.  I figure a crow ambushed the hawk.  I dropped the squirrel near the palm and it was soon gone.  Janis finds me a lot, and the hill is quite busy with crow and  jay catchers.  Puzzle Boy chases Janis from the lower yard, but she still sneaks in.  Baby bird feeding seems to be tapering off, slowly.  Beans finds me a few times a week.

.

July 4, 2021  A quiet mid morning on the hill and someone called hawk.  The crows bolted from their catching tree and Puff ducked deep into the oak above me.  Several seconds later a coopers hawk flew from low in the crow's tree with a turkey hen right on its tail.  The hen landed, turned back up the hill and then went beserk.  It charged up the hill to just under the tree where a red fox had one of its tiny chicks in its mouth.  The hen screamed and charged the fox, who counter charged.  They went back and forth a few times, with the hen screaming and flapping.  The fox saw me and dashed into the thicket.  The turkey chased it a short ways and then returned, still screaming.  During the whole scene, five other turkey hens stood on the ridge about 50 feet from the action.  Doing nothing.  The angry hen saw them and charged up the hill to confront them.  She fanned her tail like a strutting male and charged each of the bystanders, still screaming.  The other turkeys dodged her attack, but did not counter attack or flee.  After about a minute of that, the hen walked back down the hill to look for remaining chicks.  I had seen two chicks scurrying at the start of the action, but lost track of them.  I wonder if the fox was aware of the hawk, and was waiting for the diversion.  I also wonder why the other hens did not mob the fox, which they typically do with such a preditor, as seen below.

August 13, 2021 I'm amazed at the frequency at which deer appear with nasty wounds.  Last week I saw a doe with a large patch of skin gone from the circumference of a back thigh.  Today she trotted up to me, it was Almond!  Bright eyed and happy, she took several peanuts, while her leg looked like something hanging in an outdoor meat market.  Stash and Zell were with here along with a few of the Blondies.

August 27.  We were gone all last week. Have not seen Almond since we left, though Stash, Zell and a few others came through.  Beans and one of his chicks come to our hand most days.  This hill is getting a bit contentious with the Jays.  Someone (Puzzle Boy?) seems to be claiming dibs.  Good catching in the mornings with jays and crows.  Way too many turkeys.  

August 28. Saw Stash several times this morning, once with an unknown doe and once with several deer.  He found me twice in the yard for nuts.  Once on the hill while he was alone.  When Janis perched on my finger a few times, he'd walk right up and put his nose right next to her.  She did not seem to notice.  A very young fawn and its mom have been coming to the fountain.  Seems very late for a new fawn.

September 6.  Almond has come around a few times with Stash and several others.  Her leg is still a raw mess, but she's able to put weight on it and seems in good spirits.  Puzzle Boy has been catching a ton of peanuts, mostly from 3 feet while perched on in circle puzzle.  The catching jays appear to have lost most of their fear of crows.  This morning a jay grabbed a peanut just as a crow's beak was about to close on it.  They jays are quicker.  They even challenge crows for nuts that hit the ground.  20 turkeys in the yard yesterday.  A bunch were testing our big pine as a roost in the evening.  What a racket!

November 5.  The deer rut seems about over.  Several bucks are still coming around.  We've seen Almond and her crowd several times on the hill.  Her leg is in good shape.  Two of the returning gold crown sparrows remember me and come right to my feet to get peanut bits.  Beans comes to the porch in the afternoons and hops on the chair to get our attention.  He is taking nuts in the yard pretty often.  Over a dozen crows routinely join the catching game.  The jays hold their own.  The female jay at work has not shown up in a few months.  Though I did hear a rattle the other day.  The male still finds me on my walks.

December 28.  Peanut catching on the hill has been very popular.  Sometimes 20+ crows will gather.  And the jays play as much as ever.  The last few days Janis has become a complete peanut hound.  She finds me in the yard, on the deck, and on the porch.  And Beans has been finding me a lot as well, in addition to hopping between chairs to get our attention on the porch.  The deer are fat and happy grazing the fresh grasses and assorted weeds.  The female jay at work found me twice to catch, once a short throw, and once across the street. A titmouse has been sleeping in the "sock" hanging near the shed door.  It has mostly gotten used to my going into the shed early in the mornings to get seed for the birds.  At first it panicked each time, but now it sometimes sleeps through it.  Some morning it will sit on the edge and then fly off once I poke my head around the corner on the way to work.  I'm certain it knows my voice.

May 29, 2022  The jays and crows continue to gather on the hill to compete for nuts. Many crows have become incredibly graceful and agile catching nuts.  A few of the jays challenge the crows, and will sometimes zip out and rob them.  Puzzle boy and Janis have been battling over the lower yard.  Some other pair has been challenging her when she flies up to the hill from Harper.  Nothing stops her though, she finds a way.  She is safe from attack when perched on my finger.  Not so safe on my head.  No sign of Beans in about a month.  One brood of chickadees and one of titmice.  A sparse Spring for baby birds.  Janis may have been on a nest earlier, but certainly not in the last three weeks.  Puzzle Boy's mate also does not appear to be doing a nest.  She is quite aggressive in trying to keep other jays out of the low yard.  Janis works around it.  We lost Glam this spring while she was giving birth.  Blondie, Stash and Zell travel together, none of the other deer from their pack are around.  There is a single fawn this year from an unknown Doe.  She's made a statement in the yard by chasing a fox out of the wilds.  The foxes are coming around in the mornings and evenings.  And a bobcat is often on the critter cam.  We have a nestcam in a box that a bluebird pair has settled into.  They are busy feeding the brood.

November 11, 2022 A gold crown sparrow from spring and the previous year has returned, hopped to my foot and demanded a peanut.  Last year, 2 returned from their trip to the Boreal.   Seems late for new arrivals.  Jays and crows are loving the competition.  Several more jays know they are faster than crows and will beat them to the nut.  Often ten or more crows and several jays.  Janis comes across the canyon for nuts quite often.  Hard to believe she is Eleven.  Puzzle Boy still rules the yard with his mate.  One new jay on the hill hand fed several times.  But she does not come around often.  The rut seems over.  The doe is back with her fawn.  Blonde comes around a lot.  Zell keeps his distance, but shows up on the cameras a lot.  Red foxes come around many mornings.

December 17, 2022 Janis watched me split wood for a while yesterday.  I think her opinion of the activity changed when a fat beetle larva emerged.  Today she got 5 larva, along with many peanuts.  This morning a crow buried a peanut it caught right in the middle of the hillside.  It returned to the tree to catch another while a jay hunted and took the buried nut.    Several weeks back, a young tom turkey trotted up to me as I was going down the stairs to work.  It was chattering and seemed aggressive.  It stood on the hill just above me, putting its head at about my face level.  It kept chattering a few feet from my face.  I turned to continue down the stairs and it followed me close and again confronted me as I turned back.  I pushed it back with my foot and left.  Several days later I saw its flock and went outside.  It trotted right up to me again, chattering, but this time not as aggressive.  It circled me and kept close,  chattering the whole time.  A few of the hens got agitated and started to harass the tom until the flock all moved away.  I saw them again yesterday up the hill.  I took a few steps toward them and the tom came running down, and came right up to me.  Again a few hens soon drove the tom back up to the flock.  The flock of about 12 seems to be mostly yearlings.

December 24, 2022  The young tom turkey has approached me a few more times.  This morning saw the flock and went out to say hello.  He came up to me chattering and displaying.  After a while I decided to go in and leave them, but he followed me to the door of the house.  So I took him for a walk around the paths and he stuck with me, chattering the whole way.  There are 15 birds in the flock, and as far as I can tell, he is the only male.  He seems to get harassed a lot, even when I'm not outside disrupting them.

May 12, 2024 One and a half years since the previous post and not much has changed.  Janis and Puzzle Boy are to two jays who interact with me.  Many others still catch nuts on the hill.  The crows are very accomplished catchers and come from all over the canyons to play.  I've only seen Janis a few times in the last couple of weeks.  Hoping she is on a nest.  When she has come, Suitor escorted her home without waiting to catch a nut.  Puzzle Boy will come to the arm of my chair on the porch to take a nut, but not if my hand is there.  He still loves close-quarter catching. The bluebird box has four growing chicks.   There were five until two days ago.  A turkey hen has size poults.  We startled each other and they all flew up to the trees.  Poults can fly early.  One of last years chickadees remembers me and started finding me.  Took a little while to reestablish trust, but it now takes pine nuts from my hand.  A pair of tree swallows have been zipping around the yard, and were checking out a nest box.

June 30, 2024  Janis was on a nest a long time this Spring, but now she's back to visiting several times a week.  She finds me in the yard and must dodge attacks from Puzzle Boy and his mate.  The chickadee (Brownie) disappeared again.  The fledglings all seem nervous.  Our creek still has a trickle and there is quite a bit of water near the wild rose grotto.  

September 15, 2024 Puzzle Boy seems to have moved up the hill a ways.  I only see him occasionally, and his puzzle will go days without his taking a nut from it.  His former mate is still around, now named "Wheresit".  She loves chasing peanuts, but will not catch.  Janis comes maybe once a week.  Brownie has been back since July and takes pine nuts from my hand frequently.

September 29, 2024.  Now Puzzle Boy is back.  He sat on his catching perch and ducked a couple of peanuts.  So I tossed a pine nut, which he effortlessly snagged though I could not see it until it appeared in his beak.  Wheresit acts as though he never left.  Janis came to the hill today for the first time in weeks.  A large number of crow and jay catchers and some good competitions.  Crowned sparrows are back.

November 28, 2024.  Janis comes to the hill once or twice a weekend.  Sometimes she is chased on her way back and must drop the peanut to distract the harasser.   She will often then come back for a replacement nut.  This morning she met me as I climbed the hill.  She sat on the back of the other chair with a small nut in her mouth, looking up at the oak upon which three jays sat waiting for throws.  Janis made no movement toward my hand, and kept looking at the jays.  I surmized that one might be her harraser.  I tossed a nut and one of the 3 jays caught it.  Janis did not budge.  I tossed another and it too was caught by a jay.  Janis then hopped over to my finger, selected a nut and flew back home unmolested.

June 8, 2025 Janis came to the hill after a 2 month absense.  On her 3rd visit, she shelled a peanut on my hand and took the nut under the sage to stash or eat.  But she noticed another jay nearby watching her, so she brought it back to my hand and pecked it to small pieces using my knuckle as an anvil.  Suitor came frequently during her absence, sometimes taking five or more trips across the canyon.  I'm guessing she was on a nest.  At 14!  I've not seen Puzzle boy for 6 weeks and his puzzle box has gone untouched for at least 4.  Wheresit seems to have a new mate.  An older chickadee is coming to my hand, we call it Elvis due to an exagerated sideburn.  It could be Brownie though.  A titmouse also comes to my hand for pine nuts.  Offering them nuts while they are struggling to feed whining fledglings is a good tactic.    More baby chickadees and titmice than I recall ever seeing.

October 2, 2025 Two young chickadees come to our hand, offspring of Brownie.  Brownie disappeared a little while after the fledglings got independent.  The titmouse parent will also come to my hand at times.  I call it Sliver.  This morning at least 40 crows came to the hill.  Quite loud and swoopy.  They caught a lot of nuts and some jays were able to get a few, though they seemed overwhelmed.  The most crows I've ever seen up there.  Janis came for one, after an absence of 2 weeks.  It was in the midst of the crow invasion.  She immediately took a peanut and dropped it at a nearby bush to distract jays above her.  Then she came back and took an almond and a nut.  When she made her dash across the canyon, jays and crows went after her and she dropped the peanut but made it across with the almond.  An unknown jay is playing the puzzle game on the sunflower feeder.  I miss Puzzle Boy.

Research on Scrub Jay intelligence:

Absolutely fascinating research by Professor Nicola Clayton at Cambridge University:   http://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/ccl  She has made the world aware of the wonders of scrub jays.  My anecdotes hold no candle to her science. 

Meta cognition.  Jays figure out which clues to watch for.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-scrub-jays-are-capable-of-metacognition/

Episodic memory. Elements of episodic-like memory in animals  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088530/pdf/TB011483.pdf

Planning for the future, one of many incredible research results from Dr. Nicky Clayton's lab at Cambridge : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7130/abs/nature05575.html

It takes a thief:  Food-Caching Western Scrub-Jays Keep Track of Who Was Watching When: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/5780/1662

A fine summary of the species: http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Aphelocoma_californica/

Wonderful videos and firsthand insights into the lives of blue jays, an eastern cousin of scrub jays: https://www.youtube.com/user/LesleytheBirdNerd

Top