Darling Junior Scrub Jay

It's a bumper crop of scrubber babes this year; on a recent day I counted at least eight of them, in various stages of development, in the trees & on the ground outside the bathroom window. They are very loud young birds.

Scrub Jay, Where Is Your Head?

Scrub Jays in the Evening in Their Nesting Tree

Scrub Jay

Junior Scrub Jay Siblings

They're hot and hungry.

Junior Scrub Jay 2010, Friday Afternoon

I saw two of them at the feeders on Friday—or rather, in the trees by the feeders, impatiently waiting for their parent bird to give them some food. These are photos of just one junior.

Town Jays and Country Jays

A quartet of junior blue jays showed up at the feeder on Sunday morning. Already present were the quartet of junior scrub jays whom we know so well, and there was some fractiousness, with the scrub jays dominating the feeder and the little town jays sitting around looking hungry and making unfruitful forays to the feeders. It didn't take long for them to sort it out and all to eat together in harmony.




Junior blue jay on the left; junior scrub jay on the right

The Cardlets Fledge and Danger Looms in the Guise of Scrub Jays!

The three little cardinals left the nest Saturday morning to go out into the big new world. I awoke to a huge squawking and flapping out back which turned out to be the parent cardinals and a couple of scrub jays going at it, but I didn't realize until later, when I saw the empty nest, what was going on, and there was more of the same later.


They are so small! I was surprised that they are big enough to fledge. They were 10 or 11 days old, but looked so wee in the nest (and still do out in the open, actually). So anyway, later, after the scene I'd witnessed earlier, the parents were hopping around in the trees out back, making their encouraging chip-chip noises, and the little birds were gamely doing their learning-to-fly thing. I hid in the outdoor shower for a while to get these photos and then after I went inside, the scrub jays came back. They swooped at the trees where the babies were, and the parent cardinals swooped back at them, and it was really sort of horrifying in a bird-world sort of way. The jays were quite vicious and relentless in their attacks.


The mother bird with one of the young (I know it's a crappy photo; I don't care)


The parents watching vigilantly


So scrawny and sweet!


Taking a chance that the wings will work


After a bit, the fight began to center itself on the ground below one of the trees. I went out again to have a closer look and saw this:


Poor thing, I thought, its eyes weren't even open yet, which doesn't make sense with the fact that it made it out of the nest to this spot, but whatever. Its eyes were open, but it was clearly very frightened, and the jays were getting closer. I stuck around, figuring that I would scare the jays but the parent birds wouldn't leave the baby no matter what, and it worked. The jays left and the parent birds got the baby to come out from under the tree and they all went off to a tree in the meadow, where they are presumably today living happily ever after. We hope, we hope.




The angry dad—fightin' mad!