Peanut Thief!!!

[Mikey]

Okay, he's not really a thief.  I get a kick out of feeding peanuts to several Blue Jays.  One of them is pretty bold and picks them up from the table in front of me.  He took about 4 or 5 peanuts from the table before his peanut vendor ran out of peanuts. 

The glass table top is pretty slippery for his claws and he will bob & weave and slip around as he cautiously approaches the peanut.  Then he will make a sudden dart for the peanut which is one reason why the second photo is blurry. It was quite overcast this morning...still is....and the photos came out darker than I wanted.

Here he is doing is dance as he approaches the peanut.


And here he is doing his snatch & grab...

[Shawn]

Nice! You must get a kick out of watching him!!

[miguynmkoi]

Nice shot!  I remember when my kids were young they put their hamster cage outdoors for fresh air this particular bird would rattle the cage trying to get to the nuts and seeds.  Comical for me, terrorizing for the kids and hammies.   

Mean Mommy 

[PondmaninAL]

My wife feeds roasted peanuts to the squirrels but they ain't the only ones that get them. Bluejays, woodpeckers, titmouse, house wrens, and cardinals come down to eat them as well.

Scott

[Ky Kim]

Great shot.  I would like that, I love watching the birds. 

Kim

[Lynda]

Great shots, Mike!  Hey, I have a mug just exactly like that!   

[Sandye]

Great shots, Mikey!     It's not often you get to get up close and personal with a blue jay.   

We have a few blue jays, mockingbirds, and cardinals who like to eat Miss Kitty's food off the deck when she leaves some food.  I love to watch them. 

We also have a nice flock of purple martins again this year.  They are fun to watch when they are doing their early evening (insect eating) swooping.   

[Marilyn C]

That is very cool! 

[Mikey]

Kim: If you have jays around they are easy to entice to become regular visitors.  I'm hoping to get the bold one to eventually eat the nuts out of my hand. 

Lynda: We must know the same people   I put the mug closer to the peanut so that the Jay would become used to nearby objects and I intend to move the peanuts closer to me and hopefully have the little rascal eventually eating out of my hand.  A former Lt at the academy used to put the peanuts on the sidewalk and lay a path leading into his office.  He would tie a small strip of cloth, much like a kite tail, on the last peanut.  When we saw the Jay flying off with the "kite tail" we knew he had picked up the last peanut.

Sandye & Scott: Sounds like you have a much greater variety of birds where you live.  I keep hoping Cardinals will work their way over the Rockies and take to our climate here but sadly such is not the case.

[Kittyzee]

That's awesome Mikey..I don't get many jays at my feeders, I really don't know why.  I hear them in the distance but...   We DO have many cardinals and one in particular is body slamming himself at my upstairs bedroom window and then into the window directly below it on the first floor, the bathroom window.  He sees his reflection and thinks its another male.  It is so aggravating that I've been tempted to throw up the screen and see if I could grab him and maybe that would make him stop.  He finds the side mirrors on the cars and attacks them too.  The female sits in the tree and watches...I swear I saw her roll her eyes yesterday   

[Mikey]

He finds the side mirrors on the cars and attacks them too.

I had forgotten that several years ago we also had a Blue Jay that did the same thing.  He spent hours attacking his refection in the mirror of my neighbor's truck.  We used to have a stainless steel solar heating unit on the roof and this same Jay would also attack his reflection.  I thought he would break his beak pecking at that stainless steel.  Crazy bird....

[Sandye]

Kitty, we had a female cardinal attacking one of the front windows about a month ago.  It was very annoying (besides wondering if she was going to break her neck).   I had some of that silver reflecting tape that you can put in trees and in the garden to keep birds away, so I taped a few strips to the window.  It worked!   

I had to use the reflecting tape in the garden last year to keep the mockingbirds from eating the tomatoes.  I would have let them have some of the tomatoes, but DH took the shotgun outside and killed a couple of my mockingbirds...which broke my heart.   :'(  I had already netted the tomatoes, but they were still getting to the tomatoes.  Since I couldn't convince him that he shouldn't kill my beautiful mockingbirds, I finally remembered that we had the reflecting strips and used them.