01 Monday Feb 2021
Posted in birds
I could easily have overlooked this feather if, at the very moment I glanced down, the sun hadn’t shone through a fleeting break in the dense cloud cover and highlighted the tiny splodge of bright blue on one side below the white.
Once I’d picked up the feather and looked closer, I also noticed the faint blue mottling at the other end of the white patch. That blue is an indisputable identification pointer – this is from a Jay, it’s one of the less vibrant and well marked of its wing feathers.
20 Monday Jan 2020
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, frost, Jay, nuthatch, Snipe
It was frosty white again this morning so, in the hope that the chilly temperatures might have lured the resident Snipe out of their hiding places in the reed beds, I headed to Forest Farm Nature Reserve for a meander. And I was lucky – though they were very distant, I managed to spot three Snipe. Full marks if you can actually see them in this photo.
Of course, the cold temps also meant the birds were hungry and frantic to be fed. I took plenty of seed with me but many of the good folk who walk this reserve regularly had already covered fence post tops and feeding tables with food of various types. This Nuthatch was stocking up, taking away several seeds and nuts at a time to stash in nooks and crannies in nearby trees.
Jays were also busy stashing. Birders were spraying the grass in front of the bird hide with peanuts, which at least two Jays were gathering and carting away to their local hiding places. Best to be prepared in case this chilly spell continues.
08 Friday Nov 2019
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, jackdaw, Jay, Moorhen
Today was a glorious autumn day so I took myself to Forest Farm Nature Reserve for a long walk. I popped in to the hide to see what birds were around but it was very quiet.
Apart from a couple of Moorhens in the pond, the only feathered creatures I saw were these, a Jackdaw and a Jay that had been enticed down on to the grass in front of the hide by the peanuts another birder had thrown out for them.
20 Thursday Jun 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature
Tags
I’m not sure what this Jay was up to, sitting still on the grass fairly close to a busy path. Its wing weren’t spread so it wasn’t sunning itself or anting, and it didn’t seem to be distressed so I don’t think it had been attacked by anything. It also didn’t look like a particularly young bird, but maybe it was and was just waiting for its parents to feed it. Whatever the truth of the matter, it had gone by the time I walked back this way a couple of hours later.
06 Monday Nov 2017
Tags
burying acorns, food cache, grey squirrel, Jay, nut caching, nut hoarding, scatter hoarding, stashing nuts, storing food for winter
Winter is coming!
The squirrels know it; the jays know it; and they and many other small critters are busy storing food away for the cold lean days to come. The nut is one such food, the acorn a particular favourite of many.
Creatures create two different types of winter food supply. Some have just the one larder where they hide away all their precious finds of nuts and seeds, but the Grey squirrel is a scatter hoarder, secreting food in many different places. You’ve probably seen them dashing madly about the ground, burying nuts in seemingly random locations. Other creatures, like wood mice, coal tits, nuthatches and jays are also scatter hoarders, stashing their winter stores in a variety of different caches. But, I wonder, do they always remember where they’ve put their secret stashes? Somehow I doubt it.
15 Sunday Jan 2017
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Grey wagtail, Jay, Pied wagtail, Roath Park, Roath Park Lake, robin, Tufted duck
My imminent house-moving was getting to me today and, as I’m already about two-thirds packed with a week still to go, I allowed myself an afternoon off for a long walk around my local parks for a Nature fix.
It always amazes me how many species of birds I can see in a walk around Roath Park Lake. Today it was 28: Carrion crow, Magpie, Jay, Robin, Dunnock, Lesser black-backed gull, Black-headed gull, Canada goose, Barnacle goose, Greylag goose, Mallard, Manky mallard and Aylesbury duck, Coot, Moorhen, Pochard, Tufted duck, Teal, Shoveler, Pied wagtail, Grey wagtail, Redwing, Song thrush, Cormorant, Mute swan, House sparrow, Feral pigeon and Woodpigeon (though purists might not count the Aylesbury duck, Manky mallards or Feral pigeons as extra species). Still, I think it’s an impressive total. These are just a very small selection of the photos I took …
07 Saturday Jan 2017
‘Hey, lady. I saw you talking to that robin just now. Why don’t you ever talk to me?
‘I get hungry in the wintertime too, y’know, and I’m just as handsome as that robin!’
‘I have sharp eyesight so I can see that you’ve still got some seed in that little tub you’re holding.’
‘So, how about throwing a cold wet hungry but gorgeous jay a handful of seeds …. please.’
I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know the cold wet but gorgeous jay is no longer hungry!
15 Friday Jan 2016
Posted in birds, nature, nature photography
Tags
birding, birds, birdwatching, British birds, Eurasian jay, Jay
Though a shy bird by nature, the Eurasian Jay’s colouring is anything but. With a vivid blue patch on its wings, a body of dusky pink, pretty little black-and-white stripes atop its head and what looks remarkably like a black moustache, this bird is chic. No surprise then that ‘jay’ was once used, sneeringly, to describe a flashy dresser. Like most members of the crow family, the jay (Garrulus glandarius) can be loud and noisy, and an excellent mimic. As well as copying other birds, they’ve been known to imitate the sounds of cats, dogs and even telephones.
One recent afternoon I spent the most delightful 10 minutes watching this jay search for food. Most thoroughly, it picked up leaves in its beak and flung them out of the way. It then turned its head first to one side then the other to see if it had unearthed anything interesting. And, finally, success! I’m not sure what it found – some kind of seed perhaps – but the triumphant jay gulped it down whole and then looked directly at me, with a very satisfied look on its face, before flying off, no doubt to repeat the same process all over again.
