Smart birds!

The scrub jays have really come to know that we leave peanuts out for them. When we forget to toss a handful out, they usually let us know. I’ve been out in the yard before and had the jays squawk down at me. It really seemed to me that they would be scolding me, letting me know something was amiss. We would realize their peanuts were gone, so we’d refill it.

Recently, Josh and I were sitting with Lillian in the living room and we heard a gentle knocking on a window in the front room. It sounded like someone’s knuckles gently rapping the window to get our attention. Josh looked in there, and a scrub jay was tapping the window with his beak! We didn’t understand why until I looked out the french door in the living room and saw they had eaten up all the peanuts!! We quickly tossed some more out there for them. That intelligence deserves to be rewarded!!

Scrub jays are in the crow family, and crows are known for their problem solving abilities, including dropping nuts with hard shells down into an intersection where cars will cross over them crushing them open. They then wait till the red light stops traffic there and calmly fly down and grab their loot. Pretty darn smart!