The Jays at Pegasus

I've mentioned earlier that I have several types of jays that I feed every morning from the peanut feeder outside the kitchen window.  There are three species, the scrub jays, eastern blue jays and the stellars jays. There are three other jays in Colorado, the gray jay, pinion jay, and the Clark's nutcracker.  The first three are decidedly generalists, while the last three are specialists; they all share at least one thing in common, they are all birds of the mountains.  The pinion jay is a specialist of the pinion pine and rocky mountain juniper forests of the upper Sonoran zone.  This life zone is a dry, arid place, dust blows across the clearings in veils of brown and red.  Dominated by woody shrubs such as the kinnickkinnick, and cholla; a type of bushy cactus that spreads its thorned branches in a crazed fashion towards the ever clear sky.  The pinion and juniper tower over these, neither are small trees.  The pine is a two leaf pine, meaning that the relatively soft green needles form paired clusters, the tree stands rather columnar with many small branches, looking something like a giant pipe cleaner, the needles forming mostly on the very tips of the branches.  It forms cones with plump seeds that we use to make pesto sauce and that feed the dusky blue pinion jays and their more striking brethren the nutcrackers.  The juniper provides no cones, it's seeds protected by an acidic berry like fruit that hangs in singular from every point on the leafy conifer.  Needles are short, soft and scaly, almost blue.  The tree reeks of gin, which is indeed made from the white dusted blue berries.  The nutcrackers also inhabit the high mountains, sharing the territory with their cousins the gray jays.  Gray jays are the most delicate looking and sounding of the bunch but are the most bold in behavior.  They are aptly named, white at the heads fading to a stormy grey, highlighted with black.  There bills look terribly small, but they are covered by furry bristles to keep the bird warm throughout the year in the deep, cold winter forests.

Stellar's Jay showing facial marks

My birds are both foothills residents and middle elevation dwellers, all three require oak in their habitat.  Fortunately for them oaks can be found everywhere below the Canadian zone forests.  The scrub jays prefer scrub oak and are usually found in the lower transition zone, as the Sonoran forests give way to the Canadian.  The eastern jay is not picky while the stellar's demands ponderosa pine, found in the upper transition.  Living in the middle of the transition zone, as we do here in Colorado Springs allows for the overlap of the three. A platform feeder with peanuts is all you need to see these beautiful blue gems and their unique personalities. 

Scrub jay ready for a fight

Every morning I take a clear plastic cup and fill it with peanuts in the shell, I also use the cup to refill a seed mix into my tube feeder and then I toss about half a cup onto the deck itself.  Before I'm back inside four or five true blue scrub jays have landed on the railing, calling raucously back and forth. They have no barring, no wing or tail flashing, no great crests.  They do have very long evenly coloured tails which they use to great effect in their dogfights as well as brilliant white strands of pearls across their necks.  They are the smallest but most aggressive jays; the orderly queue breaks down quickly.  The first leaps into the air and dives straight at the feeder, narrowly beating the second bird which had tried to angle over the back of the first, during the riot of calls the first has overflown the feeder and the third wings in to be the first successful bird with a nut.  He weighs the nuts, setting the ones that are too small back into the feeder.  This action sometimes ends poorly when a higher ranking bird chases the nut weigher out of the feeder, only to weigh them himself.  Occasionally, with all the nuts changing bills, a peanut will be lost to the deck where a dogfight will ensue to see which of the other birds will reach it first.

Scrub Jay tossing a nut

While the pirates bicker and squabble the slightly larger, timid eastern blue jay family will take up positions.  Eastern blue jays are more white than the other two, white face, throat and belly, sapphire blue backs barred in black and edged in white flashing.  They wear helmets, a strand of black running down the sides of their faces and across their throats, that keep their great pale crests attached to their heads.  Their bills are long and straight, a matte black that looks like untreated carbon fiber.  There are two adults and two juveniles.  One juvenile will sit on the railing and give forth loud ratcheting beg calls to his poor mother while the other one hides in the gambel oak that is growing into the deck.  This one remains quiet. 

Mama Eastern Jay

The adult that I believe to be the father will fly in first, grab a nut quickly and let the scrub jays chase him while the mother, she's bigger and more wary, will sneak into the feeder and quickly store one of the smaller nuts in her crop.  She then grabs the biggest nut she can see and makes a beeline off the deck before the merry band of blue devils can chase her too.  Her child follow her. The eastern's a relative newcomer, expanding their normal range ever farther west as they are pushed out of their native live oak forests.  They will interbreed with the stellars jays, but the offspring are not viable.

Moving a nut into the crop

Magpies, another corvid, show up with the doves, finches, nuthatches, woodpeckers and sparrows that swarm to the tube and suet feeder.  These big black and white songbirds with their great, long tails walk the deck looking for the shelled peanuts in the mix, after all the peanuts are gone they usually leave, searching the trees for any nuts they may find their.  In the swirl of brown, red, and tan a tall, a pair of black and blue stellar's jays arrive to glean the seeds from the deck.  They are silent, alert and the only birds the scrub jays won't bother.  They are about half again the size of the scrubs with their great crests which are much taller than those of the easterns. 

Stellar's Jay

They have a wild look with their white painted faces.  The blue fades from the throat, deep sapphire light cerulean down their own long, black barred tails.  They are silent while foraging, bobbing quickly on their boney legs.  They do not eat the peanuts, strongly preferring the smaller seeds which the store in their gullets no doubt to cache for the long winter.  They are the last to arrive and usually the first to leave, though I have seen both the stellars and the scrubs trying to feed out of the tube feeder, which is just a little small for them.

Stellar's Jay

Corvids are one of the more interesting birds too watch, their vast intelligence and complex social structures make them seem more human than other birds, while their beauty makes them a pleasure simply to behold.  Jays are not the only members of this group; ravens, crows, and magpies are also members.  I finish my breakfast; always an orange, at the same time that the last nut is plucked from the feeder.  The morning jays cry their thanks and a promise that they will be back tomorrow.