If I had any doubts that our local population of scrub jays has changed in "personality," all were dispelled this morning. I was rousted from my patio chair rest after yard work by an unusual amount of jay noise on the other side of the fence. My first thought was that a cat was present in the tangle on the neighbors' lot. No cat that I could see.
Then I heard bird screaming - more severe than anything I'd ever heard. I could tell it was a scrub jay in trouble, however. I clapped my hands and the attacker poked its head up from the weeds - it was a scrub jay with a large stone in its beak. Then its victim fluttered about enough that I could ID it - another scrub jay. I could hardly believe my eyes - a bird of the same species trying to kill another with a weapon. I hollered and the attacker dropped its stone. It then began attacking its victim with its beak - those from-the-head-back stabbing motions that jays use to crack open a large nut.
I then decided that I didn't care for "nature taking its course" with those awful screams echoing in my backyard. So I found a palm-sized stone (no shortage of them; we live in the ROCKwood area), and chucked it offside of the fracas. That flushed the attacker off its victim. I watched the victim closely, to see where it flew off to, and in what condition. It was pretty ruffled, but seemingly ok. It landed in our oak tree without a problem, and groomed itself with about the same amount of effort as after a bath.
Has anyone ever heard of a bird like this trying to kill another of its own kind with a weapon? That's surely a new one on me.
As for the jay population's personality change - in the last couple of years the birds we see have gone from a little showy but relatively tolerant or even placid (have always had a separate feeder for them with larger nut pieces) to more aggressive. It seemed to start when the Steller Jays meandered over last fall, as they sometimes do when our huge oak tree is chockful-o'-nuts. Now they like to clear the backyard of birds before they feed, and they are much more quarrelsome with each other.
Anne in Far East Portland, straight north of Powell Butte OBOL archives: www.freelists.org/archive/obol Manage your account or unsubscribe: //www.freelists.org/list/obol Contact moderators: obol-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
