They are picky because they can afford to be -- they eat nearly everything as omnivorous birds. They eat nuts, seeds, insects and just about anything that strikes their fancy. Because of their size, they have a hard time at feeders, but they eat all kinds of things and will even make off with food at your picnic table if you're not careful. I once had a scrub jay swoop down and peck at my food when I stepped away for a moment to grab a napkin -- it broke the yolk of my sunny-side-up eggs!

One thing that's odd about them, they scare most of the other birds but are horribly timid around people. If they see me observing them, they'll run away.

In contrast, the Chickadee are tiny tolerate close human presences.

Not the jays around my place. I rescued a bald little jay baby who had fallen out of its nest about twenty five feet up. It's sibling didn't make it. No way could I return him to the nest, so I let the parents take care of it from dawn to dusk, and took it inside for the night each night because we live in the country and predators would have gotten it. This went on for at least two weeks.

I sat it by the chicken coop and ignored the baby as I worked in the garden, but the jay parents swooped me occasionally as I worked. I went over to check the baby once when the wind have moved its box and one of them swooped me with talons out and I had a pretty good laceration up the side up my head. LOL. That was the day I put the baby on the ground and told them good luck, I quit. It had feathered up by then and was to the point it could crawl out of the basket, so I think it had a good chance at making it.

The blue jays here seem to enjoy the challenge of eating at a tube feeder, or maybe it's just because they enjoy chasing the smaller birds away from it.

I put some little platforms on the tube feeder to see if the cardinals would use it, but the blue jay thought it was for him/her.

I do use a seed mix that has some peanuts in it. They use the hopper feeder also, and I'll see them knocking out whatever they don't want, to the delight of whatever is feeding on the ground.

The jays seem to like to land suddenly in the middle of a flock of small birds, sort of like a kid cannonballing in a pool, but they're respectful of the turkeys and crows in the yard.

Claire

"The jays seem to like to land suddenly in the middle of a flock of small birds, sort of like a kid cannonballing in a pool"

Yes! My husband and I were laughing about that this morning as we watched one repeatedly fly in and land in the midst of a bunch of House sparrows eating off the ground. I saw a jay try this with a dove, and laughed even harder. The dove.....symbol of peace......let him have it.

i seldom get the crested jays mine are scrub jays and pinyon jays. A pair of scrub jays nest every year in the oak brush next to the house. They come and go continually
eat a little and stuff their mouths and fly away. When the you g are big enough they start bringing them to eat too.
they do like the bigger stuff but will eat anything if they are hungry. i like it because they chatter and swoop at the cats if they show up and warn the other birds that the cat is in the yard. they store nuts and pinyon nuts and table scraps and acorns and other seeds and i have found stashes of food that they eat on when they need it.

Even though the Blue Jays are bullies and scare the smaller birds away when they want the food, I like having them around. They are good at warning the other birds if there is danger nearby, like a hawk.

Kendra is right and that's one reason I love the jays. With all my many backyard birds, the jays and the smaller birds have learned to "feed" in harmomy. My jays definitely prefer nuts to anything else. It took some trial and error to establish several styles of feeders for the various birds. I place bird seed on my privacy fence which appeals to the larger birds so the dees, titmice, etc. can enjoy the other feeders without being chased away.

Donna

I have a hopper type feeder hung on a low limb on a maple tree about 50' from the house. I have a clear plastic 2qt plastic pitcher that I use to pour the seed into the hopper. On two occassions I have had chickadees literally feeding at the feeder while i was filling it, and on one time a chickadee hovered in mid air pecking at the pitcher in my hand. On many occassions i have stood 5ft from the feeder and taken pictures of chickadees and nuthatches on the feeder.

When i fill the feeder I also make a point of pouring about 1/2 cup of seed on the ground directly below the feeder. The Bluejays, cardinals and doves prefer to feed on the ground, but when pickins are slim the bluejays will also come to the feeder.

Every morning in the wee twilight before sunrise there is a flock of about 25 doves that feed on the ground, and most mornings they are joined by three to four cardinals and 6 to 8 bluejays all feeding together.

I bundle up warm and sit in a lawn chair next to the house with my Pentax *ist Dl and a 300mm manual focus lens zeroed in on the feeder, then i attach a remote shutter release cord to the camera so i can sit motionless in the chair with my hand on the button in my coat pocket and snap pics of the birds at the feeder. (I use a long lens with a wide open aperture to minimize depth of field, which yields a nice soft pastel background in the pics. I then try to set the ISO high enough to keep the shutter speed at a minimum of 250 and preferably 350-500 so i can get good stop motion to capture birds in flight).

I am attaching some blue jay pics taken in the last three weeks.

Nice photos, lazypup! I like your hopper feeder - I've never seen one with divided lights before.

Sometimes when I go to fill the feeders I'll get buzzed by a chickadee. They also will sometimes buzz me when I'm sitting on the deck. I swear I hear birdish giggles when it happens.

Claire

Blue jays will eat anything, including other birds. I saw one once (scrub jay) with a small bird, maybe a wren, pinned to the ground in it's talons stabbing it with it's beak trying to kill it. I scared it away but it dropped the bird in some bushes. I'm sure it was already dead. Jays are like crows, they'll eat anything, especially baby birds in the spring.

My Jays like whole peanuts the most. Although they will eat other items, acorns are their main source of food. They do eat baby birds and eggs in the spring and summer. We rarely see Blue Jays (in the yard) in the spring or summer, because the nesting Robins and Grackles mob them when they come in the yard.

Here is one with 2 whole peanuts in his mouth. I counted one pick up 8 kernels of feed corn at once and cache them.

Hey, do Blue Jay prefer whole kernel corn over cracked corn?

Thanks.

Paul

I don't know if they prefer it or not to cracked. I've never offered them cracked to compare it. Most serious birders I know don't like to feed corn, since it tends to attract the less desireables. I originally got it to feed the squirrel (and he is not impressed and holding out for more peanuts). So I just shucked some and put it out for the birds. I've only seen the Jays and red-belly WP eat it. Although, recently I've notice Starlings going to that feeder but I don't know what they are eating yet. I throw all kinds of stuff in that feeder.

Here is one loading up.

Scrub Jays are the same (I guess all Jays are). This one has two peanuts in his mouth and is trying to pick up a third.

{{!gwi}}

Hey, do Blue Jay prefer whole kernel corn over cracked corn?

Thanks.

Paul

Sorry about the double delay post. Except for sparrows and squirrels, I don't actually have a lot of pest birds. There are a total of 4 black birds and 2 blue jays. They are hardly an annoyance compare to the 50 house sparrows and 10 squirrels. The sparrows and squirrels will eat everything (though squirrels won't eat thistle seeds).

I actually like to see the blue jay more and I set the blue jay type food away from the main feeder and the blue jay has not bother the other birds ever since. They end up fighting the squirrels for the nuts.

By the way, is it bad to feed birds raw peanuts? I recall someone saying that raw peanut may be toxic.

Paul

Sorry about the double delay post. Except for sparrows and squirrels, I don't actually have a lot of pest birds. There are a total of 4 black birds and 2 blue jays. They are hardly an annoyance compare to the 50 house sparrows and 10 squirrels. The sparrows and squirrels will eat everything (though squirrels won't eat thistle seeds).

I actually like to see the blue jay more and I set the blue jay type food away from the main feeder and the blue jay has not bother the other birds ever since. They end up fighting the squirrels for the nuts.

By the way, is it bad to feed birds raw peanuts? I recall someone saying that raw peanut may be toxic.

Paul

By the way, is it bad to feed birds raw peanuts? I recall someone saying that raw peanut may be toxic.

I've always assumed the peanuts sold for bird food would be a grade that is below that acceptable for human consumption, and probably have higher levels of mycotoxins. I've never seen the birds have any problems and keep coming back. I've had shelled peanuts that were covered in mold and when I throw them in the compost pile, the Starlings eat them like candy. I buy mine from wild birds unlimited, so I think they wouldn't want to kill off the customers.

Salted in the shell are not good to feed but raw in or out of the shells are great for all species of birds to my knoledge. jim

the jays here haul off the nuts and corn and larger seeds
and take the whole corn kernals first but come back for the smaller stuff later. they can hold a lot more of the bigger stuff in their beaks to horde for later. in one old woodpecker hole in a dead tree i could see that there were several cups of nuts and seeds stashed that the jays
one mouthfull at a time have stuffed it full of goodies