The jay continued throughout yesterday to pilfer the caches of the Douglas
squirrel, who after awhile learned that it could rush the Jay and chase it
off momentarily. However, the bird was patient and had more success in
raiding the squirrels cache than the squirrel was in protecting its caches.
At one point the squirrel sort of went out of control and began to whirl
around madly dashing at every single bird in sight, even running up the tree
and shrubs to chase them. At one point the squirrel leapt down and almost
landed on a varied thrush which batted the squirrel with a wing as it
escaped. It seemed like the squirrel was expending much more energy than it
would ever get from the food resource and after about 20 minutes it climbed
up to an overlooking tree branch and sat with its tail drooping as if
exhausted. While this was going on a couple of nuthatches were grabbing
seeds on the feeder above the action and caching sunflower seeds in the bark
of the nearby cedar tree, tucking them into the crevasses. As the squirrel
sat it watched the nuthatches stashing seeds nearby and apparently came up
with a new plan. This morning the squirrel so far spent much of its time
roaming the sides of the cedar and plucking out the seeds cached by the
nuthatches. When I went out to replenish the supply the nuthatches were all
giving their, YANK YANK calls. Now that there is a fresh supply of seeds,
once again its bird and squirrel bedlam. It is interesting to watch them
sort out the dominance of who gets to feed at what time.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County, WA