At 02:38 PM 9/16/96 -0800, Dennis wrote:

>
>One thing all jays do is to become extremely inconspicuous during the
>breeding season. They essentially shut up, seemingly a difficult feat for
>a corvid. The Steller's Jays in my neighborhood do exactly as you
>wrote--disappear in summer and reappear in August. But occasionally during
>the summer I would hear one calling from within a block of me. They may
>well restrict their activity to an area fairly close to the nest, and, even
>though it's only a block away, they may in fact never visit our yards
>during the summer. They're at the feeders every day now.
>
We had both Stellers and Scrub jays breeding in our yard this summer and I
can confirm they don't move far from the nest during that time. What was
interesting was the Stellers nested in the trees at one end of the house,
the scrub jays at the other end of the house. Neither pair was more than
100 feet from their chosen food sources and ceased their usual territorial
disputes during nesting time.

I also noted that when I approached close to the scrub jays' nest (it was
more accessible - less poison oak!) the birds would "disappear" silently
into the brush nearby. More or less leading me away from the tree where the
nest was located. I don't know if this was their intent, or my perception,
though.

As soon as the young had fledged, the scrubs and stellers became quite noisy
when anyone or anything came anywhere near the area where they had tucked
the young birds.

A couple of years ago our cat was walking across the front yard of our old
house and came into the area where a pair of scrub jays had stashed their
fledgling. The parents sat in the tree, very close above the cat's head and
squawked at the top of their lungs. Continuously. When the cat tried to run
they followed and continued their harassment. At one point the cat was
scrunched into the ground below all this racket and looked like he'd like
nothing more than to have the ground open up and swallow him. Anything to
get away from all that noise!

I love corvids! They're so entertaining!

Peggi

Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Veneta, OR (near Eugene)
prodgers at efn.org
peggir at ori.org

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"