JJ is holding the peanut with her toes so that she can peck at the shell to get at the peanut inside.

I was sitting in a chair gazing out the window when along came JJ the blue jay. She is a corvid and therefore very clever.

Corvids can make and use tools. They are innovative and amazing birds. Other species such as ravens, crows, Canada jays, Steller’s jays and California jays are included in the corvid family. Blue jays are essentially a bird of eastern North America, but they occasionally wander further west. They can be seen year-round from British Columbia to the east coast. Non-breeding blue jays have been seen in the coastal areas of Washington and Oregon. To my knowledge it has never been recorded on Long Beach Peninsula. It has, however, been seen elsewhere in Pacific County but less than five times overall.

I decided to write about the blue jay, even though my observations are from the Calgary, Alberta yard, because we do see one of its “cousins” in our area, namely, the Steller’s jay. They are both sentinels of the forest, always on the alert for predators or larger birds such as ravens, owls and hawks. Their calls warn other species of potential danger.

JJ, as I call her, is a screaming mimi when food is on the line. I don’t really know whether she is a female or male, but it seems like a lady to me. She sits on a tree branch or on the top of the shepherd’s hook calling “jay” “jay” for all and sundry to hear. She also perches on the barbecue and looks in the window at the room divider where the CoolWhip container filled with peanuts in the shell usually sits. If the container has been moved to the kitchen table she lands on the bench that backs up against the big picture window in the kitchen and stares at the peanut filled container. In the summer when the kitchen door glass window was in the window hospital having an “owie” fixed she perched on the frame and looked in longingly at the container for lunch.

Her behavior definitely grabs our attention, and it has become the signal for us to keep putting out peanuts until she has satisfied her hunger or has had enough of playing hide the peanuts for seeking in the winter months when food is scarce, or we are not home to do her bidding. Sometimes JJ is accompanied by another jay.

Watching JJ’s foraging and eating antics can be very entertaining. Once the peanuts are sitting in her favorite places she flies in from her perch and just looks at them. She tries out a few after having what seems like taking time to attempt to size them up. It’s pick me up and put me down with the peanuts several times. Once it is decided which is heaviest off she goes to a tree branch to extract the peanuts from the shell and store them in her gullet. Which peanut to choose next appears to be easier having tested quite a few at the outset. I have tested her cleverness by being in the know as to which peanut is the heaviest, for example. She is always on the money! My observations thus far, have determined that JJ can stuff at least four peanuts, once shelled, down her gullet and beak. Clever, don’t you think? It saves trips to where the nuts are being cached. However, sometimes she just devours a peanut whole. Swooping in for lunch best describes her flight pattern at lunch time. It is swoop, snatch and grab. This seems to reflect that the fact that the jay’s competitors such as squirrels are also at the ready when it is lunch time. JJ has to be fast once her competitors discover the bounty.

Sometimes JJ bathes like fury while waiting for a peanut to materialize adding emphasis to her request for lunch. She also enjoys a drink now and then and a bath for no reason at all other than to be clean and feel great!

Blue jays are among the smartest birds on earth. Maybe we will see one on the coast one of these days. Perhaps, when a major storm occurs it may blow one in our direction!

Happy birding!