Commentary by Christy Solo
Right now, I have a yard full of puppies!
Not the four-legged kind, though that would be fun too.
My current yard puppies are a passel of juvie Steller’s Jays who are filling my yard with their antics from dawn to dusk.
Typically I’ll see three or four juvie Steller’s in early June. Then there will be a second brood of, again, three or four in September.
This year my yard has been wall to wall juvie Steller’s jays since June 18. I have no explanation as to why this has been an all-out banner year for breeding Steller’s Jays, but it sure has. I am in no way complaining. In fact I highly recommend getting yourself a yard full of young jays, it’s a hoot! They do go through a lot of peanuts however.
In a normal year – well “normal” being a relatively small sampling as I’ve only lived here five summers – two pairs of Steller’s jays will spend spring and summer in my yard and produce the aforementioned two rounds of “three or four” kiddos between them.
In winter everyone shows up for the free food, and I have between 11 and 16 Steller’s in the yard daily. But those are grown-up Steller’s who, while entertaining, just don’t hit “juvie levels of mischief” on the daily.
I refer to the young Steller’s as “puppies” for a reason. Like our four-legged puppers, young Steller’s are “all go all the time.” They start their day at 6 a.m. by standing on my railing and *screaming* though the open screen door until I bring them some shelled peanuts.
As with my four-legged dogs, my new two-legged and winged puppies have me very well trained.
They then spend their day in and around the yard, endlessly exploring. Their favorite game is quite puppy-like indeed; it’s the “Can I eat this?” game. I watched one juvie take a run at eating the seeds off a curly-leafed dock plant. The seeds don’t come off the plant easily, but our juvie really gave it a go before deciding the seeds were both difficult to acquire and not at all tasty.
The juvies’ second favorite game is “If I look REALLY CUTE and beg REALLY LOUD can I still get an adult to feed me even though I’m literally standing in a pile of food!” The food is generally peanuts, though sometimes it’s seed.
FYI the Begging Game never works. Some of these begging “juvies” are the bird age equivalent of college freshman and Steller’s jay parents are kicking them out of the virtual basement and into the world.
I’ve yet to figure out exactly how long it takes for the young’uns to get this message. There’s a lot of big baby jays screaming and following adult jays around the yard.
The juvie Steller’s’ third favorite game is “I’ll just put this away for later” they’ve incidentally hidden, ergo planted, all manner of seeds all over my yard. I have sunflowers, millet, milo and even some corn plants bustin’ out all over. Now and then one of my actual dogs will dig up a jay’s corn cache in the lawn and you’d think they’d found real gold nuggets not corn nuggets they’re so proud.
It remains to be seen if juvies will keep popping up into September as normal, but I’ll sure enjoy every moment of every one.
