I try to use a wide variety of bird seed and foods to draw a wide variety of visitors to my yard. My staple is sunflower hearts, universally enjoyed by most all birds, especially bluebirds. I also toss out bits of cracked corn, millet, sunflower seeds, a little fruit, and some nuts. Titmice, chickadees, and blue jays enjoy nuts.
My blue jays come and go. I’ll usually have a couple nesting pair that visit my feeders in the summer, then I won’t see them for a while. A few weeks ago, I began seeing 7 blue jays, the same number as last year and I knew it was time for peanuts. I bought a five-pound bag for about ten bucks, which is really a pretty good buy since a handful of nuts each morning goes a long way. It didn’t take long for the jays to figure out that the human in the brick house who walks to the back yard each morning is a good source of peanuts.
Blue jays like to spread the wealth around. When they see me coming, they begin to squawk and alert the rest of the clan that it’s time for breakfast. Before I can get back in the house, the jays are landing where I scattered the goodies. They will pick up one or two nuts, fly off to a tree, hold the nuts with their feet and peck them into bite size morsels, gobble down the peanuts and return for seconds,
Jays are pretty birds and if they leave my bluebirds alone, they are always welcome in my back yard.