10 Oct 2025
October is nut season and the blue jays are busy. We see them flying backwards and forwards on the identical route all day lengthy on. What are they doing?
Right now of yr blue jays eat acorns from the treetops and carry many extra of their gular sacks and beaks to cache at residence for the winter. They all the time go overboard and cache greater than they’ll ever eat. So, unintentionally, blue jays are planting bushes.
Blue jay mother and father and grown children all contribute to storing meals of their residence territory. Listed here are some cool information about how and why they do that. (info is from Birds of the World)
- Blue jays are omnivores however throughout oak mast season their food regimen turns into 67% acorns.
- They like pin oak (Quercus palustrus) and willow oak (Quercus phellos) acorns, not pink oak (Quercus rubra) or white oak (Quercus alba). –> That’s why I see them flying to a courtyard that has pin oaks.
- In addition they desire to collect acorns on the tree, versus on the bottom.
- Every time they fly residence they normally carry 1-5 acorns or as much as 15 beechnuts, relying on measurement.
- To hold the nuts, they retailer 2-3 of their distended throat and anterior esophagus + one in mouth + one at bill-tip. The blue jay pictured above has a bulging throat however the acorn in his mouth is just too giant for him to hold one in his bill-tip.
- “Every particular person grownup in all probability harvests and eats or caches a number of thousand acorns, beechnuts, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, or different onerous mast every autumn.
- This tendency might account for the speedy postglacial dispersal of oaks.” — Birds of the World
The 9-minute video under exhibits blue jay caching conduct and explains how blue jays in all probability plant extra bushes than squirrels!
Click on right here to watch the video on YouTube and see the hyperlinks to the writer’s supply materials.
