In the last month, 3-4 young scrub jays have showed up in the garden. We’ve taken to throwing them bits of cracked corn on the ground. Whereas the grownups are very wary and circumspect, these punks squawk their heads off raucously when we go out to feed the chickens. Such noive! (I seem to remember a comment from one of the old Whole Earth publications about blue jays sounding like creaking door hinges.)
Yesterday I sat still in a chair and got this guy to come to within a few feet. He would eat a bit of corn, then grab another piece, put it down, dig a hole, and bury it. THEN — he would cover the hole with a leaf or twig. How he’s going to remember where he buried all this loot is beyond me.
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
how he will remember where he buried his loot? — well he may not get the chance..I have noticed in our backyard, the magpies are VERY sharp about watching when another bird or squirrel buries something, then off the magpie goes and digs it up.
lloyd, don't feed those little basters, they will start tap on your windows to be fead ,at lease that what happen to me. little baster start at sun rise!!!! .gary
gary green…for sure..bet they will.
I live much further north, we have blue jays
gosh are they smart
at first it was just if we were outside and the feeder was empty…they would chirp at us till we fed them
then, if they could see us through the window
then it came to pass, even if they could hear us inside, not only would they chirp, they would tap on the wood siding..
all in all, it was pretty cute, and quite smart
Lloyd, Check out Judith Lowry"s book: "The Landscaping Ideas of Jays: A Natural History of the Backyard Restoration Garden" http://www.amazon.com/The-Landscaping-Ideas-Jays-Restoration/dp/0520249569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376494902&sr=8-1&keywords=judith+larner+lowry+jays