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A scrub jay takes flight from the top of a live oak standing near the top of a canyon wall about one thousand feet from my chair. The jay crosses the canyon and joins a dozen other jays already perched in the oak above me. The new jay takes the spot of another who unwillingly hops to an alternate perch, dislocating yet another jay. After several more shuffles and a muffled squawk, they settle and I flick an unshelled peanut twenty feet into the air, out over the steep slope leading to the canyon floor. Five jays shoot out of the tree after the nut, the two slowest quickly turn back to the tree to reclaim their spots. The other three climb toward the nut as it reaches its apex. They jostle, reducing the chance of a catch. One jay peels off, looping into a dive and snags the peanut ten feet beneath the other two. It takes its prize up the canyon while another set of contestants chase the next nut. About eighty peanuts later, the jays thin out and take longer to return from wherever they’ve flown to cache what they’ve caught.
These contests are held for about twenty minutes twice each morning, nearly every weekend, and involve between ten and twenty jays. Most of the jays learned to catch peanuts by watching and joining in. The first catchers had no other jay to learn from. It started in my hammock, tossing almonds for one of the friendly yard jays that would not take nuts from my hand. Pretty Bird would spend twenty minute stretches just hanging out with me, or hunting for almonds tossed into the tall grass. I wistfully wondered if it would be possible to train the jay to catch the nut on the wing. Some weeks later, tossing almonds from our second story porch, Pretty Bird outflew a nut and grabbed it before it hit the ground. I suspect that bird was as excited by the potential as I was. While previously, she’d perch with her body facing us, she was soon perching to look out into the open space where nuts would fly.
Pretty Bird left us not long after she started catching nuts on the wing. However, another jay had been watching and quickly took up the challenge. This was Flip, Shadow’s mate who had previously been a nameless jay who sometimes helped Shadow with territorial battles. Soon, he was always around, perched on whatever branch might make him visible to me. He loves chasing nuts and became a master, but not without a lot of trial, error and practice. Jays are good fliers and will sometimes fly-catch, a form of hunting insects. They chase each other and their rivals, the towhees, and adeptly dodge sneak attacks. However they don’t typically have experience chasing projectiles with predictable flight paths. The first two hurdles were gravity and collisions. Early in the learning process, Flip would routinely fly right past a nut as the nut’s vertical climb slowed toward the apex. By the time he’d turn back toward the nut, it would be close too close to the ground to pursue. Also, when a tossed nut’s trajectory started mostly horizontal, he’d trace the trajectory, which would often bring him too close to the ground before he caught up with the nut. Over the course of several months, he learned to anticipate the path of the nut, accounting for gravity. As a climbing nut slows, so does he, and now he can gracefully stall and pivot to a dive while grabbing the nut in his beak. When a nut is accelerating toward the ground, he no longer traces its path. Instead, he accelerates toward the ground while some horizontal distance from the nut. He then levels off near the ground and adjusts his speed to intercept it.
Tree trunks and limbs presented a similar problem. Early on, if the flight of a nut brought him within ten feet of colliding with a tree, he’d break off the chase. After some months, he became adept at anticipating when a nut would fly too close to a tree limb. Then, instead of chasing the nut, he’d fly right at the tree, turning and slowing at the last moment such that he’d have a soft, feet-first landing against the vertical surface. He’d either grab the nut while making the turn, or while temporarily “standing” on the vertical surface.
For many months, Flip was the only jay that caught nuts. I was so fascinated by watching him learn that it did not occur to me to wonder what it would be like if two jays chased the same nut. Or, what if a whole bunch of jays went after the same nut? Other jays would hang around while Flip chased nuts, squabbling over the few nuts that made it to the ground. Eventually, a jay from across the street began to fly after the nuts. This introduced a new set of challenges, for jays seem naturally afraid of colliding with other jays.
The first dozens of throws in which both birds chased the nut typically resulted in both birds pulling away as soon as they came within ten feet of each other. Slowly, they learned to fly closer while avoiding collisions, allowing the quicker jay to catch the nut. Flip developed a neat trick in which he’d fly deliberately toward the other jay. When the other jay pulls away to avoid a collision, Flip goes into a quick cork-screw dive to intercept the nut before it hits the ground. This activity attracted other jays, and not just the gang who fought over the nuts that hit the ground. Soon, jays were jostling for advantageous perches. When tossing from the porch, one jay started positioning itself on our roof while the other jays were in trees, giving it a wing-up on the nuts that strayed in that direction. Six jays competing for nuts! Then ten and more.
Then I started tossing from our hill on weekend mornings. Jays fly in from all over. I see them coming from across the two canyons on whose common ridge I sit beneath the oak. And they fly in from up and down the canyons. Some catch a nut and do not return. Most catch, cache, and return. At least one jay is mostly only there to play. It catches a peanut, returns to the tree, and drops that nut en route to catching the next peanut. And when a nut falls to the ground, the “catchers” typically ignore it and return to the tree. Earth-bound nuts are chased by other jays that, for whatever reasons, choose not to catch. Now six wild turkey hens have joined in the morning ritual, and they end up with most of the fallen nuts.
Our hand-feeders continue to come to the hill during the competitions. Though Janis and her mate Slim seem put out that so many jays routinely invade their territory. She gets her revenge by perching on my finger, slowly sorting nuts in my hand, while the catchers grow impatient in the tree.
The crows have learned to catch nuts and now there are great competitions on the hill. It was fun watching the crows learn technique and strategy, including:
Fly where the peanut will go, not where it is heading. Requires taking account of gravity.
Open your beak to catch it rather than trying to stab it.
Fly lower than the other competitors and be prepared to catch a nut that bounces off another's beak.
Perch on a higher limb that may be further from where the peanut will be. This avoids some fight against gravity and allows you to get to peanuts quicker.
Learn the body language of the thrower, and use that to anticipate throws, getting a jump on others.
Don't go after the first thrown nut, the thrower will often toss a 2nd before the other birds have reset from the previous chase.
When you make a good catch, circle back and show the nut to the others while crowning about it!
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