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Showing posts with label Jay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jay. Show all posts

Monday, 9 July 2012

Jay..... On a feeder!!!!???

I witnessed something yesterday that I have never seen, and was certain didn't happen.....  I have had a Jay and several Jays at a time visiting my garden and feeding from the Peanut feeder and fat ball feeder. I have always been under the impression that Jays are very secretive birds, that like the cover of woodland, feeding on acorns etc and rarely breaking cover. As you will have seen from a post last week HERE, I have had them in the open feeding on the ground in the garden and scrapping with the magpies, but this week I witnessed them actually up on the feeders, sods law first time I saw it no camera ready, but it is now left primed ready for such occurrences, and low and behold it happened again, this time I got the shots to prove it, although the light wasn't great they turned out fair to middling!
It has pretty much dispelled my belief that they are very secretive birds, something the RSPB makes clear in its DESCRIPTION , I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it myself, i'm just interested now to know if anyone else has witnessed this???





This one appeared to have a gold bead in its mouth



Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Magpie v Jay

As I came into the kitchen this morning all bleary eyed and half asleep, I was met with one hell of a commotion from in the garden, peering out of the window quickly to see who was being murdered, I was met with the site of a magpie and a Jay locked in mortal combat!! When I am at home now I leave my camera set up near the kitchen window as there is always something about on the feeders, I grabbed it quickly and made a hurried attempt to get the settings right, and managed to get a few shots to record the scrap. I have had a lot of young Jays visiting the feeding station recently, and looking at the angle the magpie had it pinned down, it looks like the magpie fancied its chances of having it. They did break free and both flew off, none the worse for their early morning spat it seemed. Never seen that before, has anyone else witnessed it?