A Problem of Stellar Proportions...

It happens every late-summer. The well-dressed beatniks in black and blue drop off their offspring on my deck rail. Well not exactly drop off, they bring these kids to the rail, with their black beaks still hinged by the bright pink skin of a fledgling and their mouths still 'feed me' red inside. Besides the tell-tale signs around their beaks, the youngster's feathers have a matte finish to them with bits of gray baby-down poking out of places that should be solid and smooth. The adult's feather suits nearly shine, from the top of their black crests to their brilliant blue bottoms. Even though fledged, they still wail in the face of their parents, flapping their wings in flightless activity and flash their gaping red mouths, begging to be fed. The parents do a good job of ignoring them by this time, even when it means flying away from the squawking, flapping kids in quick, tree to tree chases, like a game of tag. The parents bring these needy beggers to my deck rail where they know peanuts will served by a human. It is like their local diner.

The human, the adults Stellar's jays have figured out, will respond to their loud squawks or their getting up on the gutter and looking down into the window where they can make eye contact with her while she works. When the human goes to her bedroom at the back of the house, they detect this activity and spy on her from the pine trees in the back yard. They fly near the bedroom window, getting on the hot-tub deck roof and pull out their bag of attention grabbing tricks: squawking, jay-mumbling, whistling like a hawk and rapping their beaks on the metal, to get her attention. They have her trained well. Sometimes they bump lightly up against a window if she is not paying close enough attention.

There is also the dog factor. The human's dog, Sarah, believes the jays are her rivals. She is jealous of any attention her human pays to them, inadvertently helping them by alerting the human to their presence by jumping up and going to the front window, growling or barking and then going and grabbing her bone before they do (Sarah doesn't have the concept of "glass" fully developed, yet). When the human talks to Sarah, specifically about the jays, Sarah understands completely the term, "perty birds" and will run to the front window or go get a toy to divert attention away from her enemies, the 'perty birds'. Sarah also know it is time to be hatin' when the word, "Rainbow" is mentioned (the designer dog across the street) and knows to be on full alert when "meow" is discussed with her. Sarah hates meows, most of all. Point is she has a vocabulary. That vocabulary also includes knowing the specific names of certain plush toys and of course the requisite "bone" is recognizable to her as is, "go car." Sarah-dog suffers the presence of the jays and laments any bit of time her human spends on them. Her human, even sometimes goes so far as to say: "perty birds" when in another room, and Sarah will not come when her name is called. "Hello! Perty birds!" will bring Sarah running into the room to defend her space. Her human thinks this is pretty funny.

So what happens late summer is, a pair of Stellar's jays bring their two or so young to the deck, letting them get used to the idea of peanuts. Showing them how to put one down their throat pocket and another in their beak. They demonstrate how to crack them open. And show them how to pick them up and weigh them in their beaks, looking for the heaviest shells. Then they teach them to hide them in the nearby garden dirt, under some tangled grass or under a leaf. Then they leave. Just leave not taking the kids. Maybe they take off quietly, in the middle of the night? I don't know. And it is not just one pair of jays dropping their kids off at the diner. It is usually several pairs, over a period of a few weeks. This year is seemed that the number of customers was going to cap off at 6, peanut-eating jays. That number lasted about a month. Then there were eight, then ten, now a dozen. Twelve obnoxious, loud, hungry, smart, beautiful jays.

They sit on the deck rail, hunched down in their feather jackets looking in the big living room window till the human comes out with peanuts. When she leaves the house to walk across the street to get the mail, they flock seemingly out of nowhere and follow her back to the house, resting in the lilac tree, the nearby beech, the gutter and the deck rail. I'm convinced they work in shifts keeping an eye on the house and 'human.' When the peanuts come out, the few visible jays scream their loudest 'Peanuts!!' screeech and the flock congregates quickly from the surrounding trees. They are a big responsibility and they are big eaters. Next year, they will be dropping off their kids at the diner and then taking off…

***Stellar's jays are in the 'corvid' family. Same as ravens and magpies. They are considered the smartest of bird species. Recommned reading: "Bird Brains" A book with lovely photos and interesting facts about corvids.