My Birds

I have some friends I want you to meet,  I am fascinated by them...  They are my Blue Jays and they stay with us all year round, as long as we are feeding them.  I think they are beautiful and they are very intelligent!  They have a way of knowing when I am trying to take their picture, I spent WAY too long getting these few photos.  Every time I would put the camera down they came flocking again!

They haven't been around much lately because of the nasty weather we've been having, but yesterday we had a nice, sunny little break in between storms so they came looking for food.  They love to eat the crust off Zach's peanut butter sandwiches.  He eats a lot of crustless sandwiches so there is always plenty to go around.   It's interesting to watch them,  they wont eat at the same time so while one eats the others fly out onto a tree or sage brush and they take turns coming in for food.  Sometimes they get a little too close for comfort and they end up fighting. 

 

I have a great Blue Jay story from a few years ago that I want to share.  I think it's pretty entertaining... 

 

When we were living in Sugarhouse we had a few Blue Jays that visited us daily in the the summertime.  They were very unafraid of us and our dogs.  They would hop right onto my patio table and eat the food off of my plate.  We shared many breakfasts together.  They absolutely LOVED to antagonize the dogs and our cat Leo.  Unfortunately, one day Leo got fed up and we ended up with blue feathers scattered all over the lawn and a very unpleasant "present" was left on my front porch!  I was SO MAD at Leo I couldn't even look at him for days!!!  Well, as it turned out, I wasn't the only one who was mad at him.  For several weeks after that happened we had swarms of Blue Jays all around our house, it was CRAZY!  There were at least 2 dozen of them and they were making a ruckus!  You could always tell where Leo was because they would sit on the roof top or up in the trees and take turns dive-bombing him and squaking at him!  It got to the point that I was a little embarased of what my neighbors would think!  I thought it was never going to end...  Eventually the majority of them left us alone, but we still had a few buddies that would visit us often.

So now that we have moved to Rockport we still have many Blue Jay friends that hang around.  Watching the birds always reminds me of Grandma Jane.  She loved to sit at her kitchen table and watch "her birds" out in the back yard.   I like to think that she is nearby when I am watching"my birds."  I love having them around.  It is always a pleasant surprise to see them on these rare sunny days.