Scrub Jays

Love Those Peanuts!

We've enjoyed watching the Western Scrub Jays that hang out in the canyon shrubbery and visit our suet feeder, so we shouldn't have been too surprised to see one hop on to the top of the peanut feeder we have out in the area behind the fence.

We had just hung up a holder for nesting materials, thinking the hummingbirds and Lesser Goldfinches would find it there, but the Scrub Jay obviously thought we had refilled the thing with peanuts.

We got the hint and moved the nesting materials to a different location and filled the feeder with unshelled peanuts.  Then we hung around and waited to see how long it took for the Jay to reappear.  I hadn't gone ten steps before a Jay appeared in the bushes, and within another ten the bird was up on the feeder.  Within a minute it had pried a peanut out and flown off with it.

When we put peanuts out like this, they're usually gone within a day.  I don't know what they do with all those peanuts, but I don't think they could eat them all at once, so they must be stashing them somewhere to eat later.

We have nightmare visions of rampant legumes all over our hillside from Scrub Jay stashes.

Update:  by the end of the day:  not one single peanut was left in the feeder.