I’ve said this before, but the two smartest bird varieties of birds to visit my yard are the crows and the blue jays. My crows have become regular visitors, usually 3 but occasionally 5. They eat most anything they can find but are especially fond of pieces of stale bread I sometimes scatter. Typically, a crow will pick up a piece of bread, fly to the bird bath and dunk the bread as you and I would a doughnut in a glass of milk. They communicate constantly with one another and always have one guard bird watching out for danger.
My other smart birds are the blue jays. I always have two families of jays that nest in or around my yard and in the winter, 7 or 8 of these colorful, clever birds will make sporadic visits.
Blue jays range from southern Canada and throughout the eastern and central United States south to Florida and over to Texas. They are distinctly American. Blue jays live in a variety of habitats within their large range, from the pine woods of Florida to the spruce-fir forests of northern Ontario. They prefer mixed woodlands with oaks and beeches. These birds have also adapted to human activity and especially my yard.
They know when they see me heading towards the shed (where I keep all my bird seeds, suet, and other goodies) that it’s lunchtime. Blue jays dearly love peanuts and I try to have an opened bag with my stash, tossing out a handful with each visit. Before I can get back to the house, I hear them squawking to alert the others that there are peanuts in the building. Before the squirrels get a chance, my several blue jays swoop down, sometimes picking up a single peanut and sometimes getting a beak full and then they always fly off to a nearby limb. They never eat them on the ground.
Interesting birds, and they certainly have me well-trained.