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Jays

BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
in Wildlife gardening
This is the first year I have had this pair of Jay's visiting my garden. They really are a quite striking bird with the blue feathers. I am surprised to see them here as its quite open arable farming land. 

Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I frequently see Jays around here and am also surrounded by arable land and wooded areas.
    Beautiful birds, but very noisy!

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    Every other bird in the vicinity finds something to do elsewhere when one arrives in our garden. They are beautiful, and so are magpies 
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    edited April 2019
    I thought they were more forest or woodland birds as there were a lot where we used to live being surrounded by woodland but they never came to the garden. 

    Do they take small fledglings and eggs of other birds like magpies do? Hope not, my book says acorns, nuts etc.

    * damn, I just read that they do. 
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Jays are more a woodland bird, than an open land bird.
    They eat everything, including eggs and baby birds.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    My neighbour is a bird lover and feeds them throughout the year.
    The bird bath in her front garden is frequented by rooks that live in a huge rookery at the end of the road.
    She has to clean the bird bath every few hours this time of year as the rooks take chicks from other nests and wash them in her bird bath leaving blood and guts floating around it looks disgusting, but that's nature at work..
    I've no idea why they wash them first though

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Perhaps they slip down easier when wet😀
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    :smiley:


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    Hmmm, they are after the last of the peanuts here, dont know if I should carry to save them from eating chicks or shoo them away because I dont want a bird blood bath. 
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    We have loads in the surrounding woodland, but don’t see them in the open fields so much, but probably because we have woodland! They are striking birds, but very raucous and bullying - they chase the garden birds away and bag all the cherries. We don’t have magpies because they are very territorial and don’t mix. Where I used to live in the south, the azure-winged magpies (gorgeous) and the b&w magpies also had different territories, there was a distinct geographical line between them and woe betide one if it crossed the line...
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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