Jays are stocking up for winter
As the days perceptibly shorten, the landscape is beginning to look a little tired and jaded.
Although green remains stubbornly dominant, most of the foliage now looks dull and weary and green is slowly giving way to yellow, russet and gold!
After a long, hot summer, the boffins at the Met Office warned that we might expect this autumn to be a little shorter and less spectacular and colourful than usual.
Blink, and there is a danger of missing full-blown autumn. Looking at some of the local horse chestnuts, which usually glow red and then gold as autumn takes hold, this time around they have been nothing like as colourful as usual.
Instead, along with other trees, they are beginning to look well beyond their ‘sell-by’ dates.
I seem to have missed the red phase altogether and now they are perhaps, best described as being in ‘old gold’ and brown mode. And with forecasts of high winds and frosts to come over coming days, trees in general may well find themselves suddenly stripped of their leaves.
One way or another it seems likely they have almost run their course for the year and are therefore ready to rest up until next spring once they have shed their foliage.
Yet, whilst there are hints that things in general are preparing to shut down, there is still plenty of feverish energy being expended. Now, for instance, is the time when collector-mania’ infects many of our animals.
In order to survive the forthcoming winter the time has come to lay in sufficient stores to ensure that they have enough food to survive those months when natural food sources are either scarce or, when winter frosts really bite, inaccessible. Hence, there is a sense of urgency as many animals seek to capitalise on nature’s harvest. Squirrels and small mammals thus busy themselves stashing away supplies for the winter days that lie ahead.
Squirrels are perhaps the most renowned hoarders of an amazing variety of nuts, beech-mast and seeds yet there is another creature which specialises in collecting, in particular, the fruits of the oak tree, acorns. And, surprise, surprise, this compulsive collector is a bird, not a mammal.
Jays are the most colourful members of the crow clan, glorying in distinctive pink body plumage, striking azure blue wing coverts, an equally striking, erectile black and white crown, a black moustache, a prominent white rump and surprisingly blue eyes! And, during autumn, these colourful birds can be seen collecting and burying countless acorns in their territories.
Whilst the flight of jays often appears to be somewhat laboured, their quite short wings are rounded, enabling them to dodge agilely through their woodland habitat. However, once on the ground or among the branches, a degree of clumsiness returns with their rather heavy hopping motion.
Their cautious approach to life also extends to the fact that jays seldom if ever use the same nest more than once. Yet in contrast to this chary approach to life, jays are extremely bold when it comes to defending their young and are always ready to launch attacks upon raptors such as sparrowhawks.
Come the autumn season and an individual jay may well collect and bury as many as 3000 acorns, not in one huge cache but in many separate locations. They disperse them thus simply because should such a store be discovered by either other jays or indeed squirrels, this vital supply of food, which is a major means of getting them through the winter, could be wantonly plundered.
Although jays are pretty good at committing the whereabouts of their stores to memory, inevitably some do get forgotten. Hence jays become unwitting re-generators of precious oak woodland.
As woodland dwellers, jays are birds of a relatively shy and covert temperament. Seldom for instance, will you see jays flying together. Rather they will fly singly, that prominent white rump, the main feature by which we most often recognise them.
However, jays are also at times notoriously noisy, their blood curdling squawks enough to momentarily set the pulse of someone not familiar with their coarse vocalisation, racing.
These screeching alarm calls also alert other birds and even animals to impending danger. It is known for instance, that squirrels recognise the jay’s alarm calls and accordingly make themselves scarce. Hence, these colourful birds are also sometimes generously known as ‘the guardians of the woods’.
This screeching is by no means, the only vocal prowess they enjoy. In flight they will sometimes ‘chuckle’ softly and during courtship, they can be quite confiding and melodious. In fact, jays are also remarkable mimics, experts at reproducing the calls of the likes of owls, kestrels, hawks and buzzards and even sometimes chatter squirrel warnings and the alarm calls of other birds.
Indeed, I have heard many tales about the remarkable ability of captive jays to replicate the voices of their owners. In some quarters, the jay is known as the ‘oak jackdaw’ and as it happens, I once found myself taking care of a captive jackdaw – another ‘crow’ of course - and well remember how Joey, as he was named, also showed some talent for mimicry. He would deliberately and very loudly repeat his name every time a neighbour’s dog came into our garden. The effect on the dog was remarkable.
Unable to fathom from whence this very human voice was emanating, it used to put its tail between its legs and at a rate of knots, scarper! It is my understanding that jays however, are even better mimics than jackdaws.
Jays are frequently accused of dining on the eggs of other woodland birds, yet in truth they may suffer similar assaults at the hands of squirrels and the beaks of crows and these days perhaps by the new generation of pine marten too.
Like most corvids, jays are extremely omnivorous, although when they have young in the springtime, they tend to concentrate on invertebrates. Acorns however, remain a primary food source, especially during the winter. This is their priority right now. They must stock up for the forthcoming days of winter when other natural sources of food become increasingly unavailable.
There is therefore, much more to jays than you might think. Well may they be known as ‘Divil Screechers’ but as such they are indeed the sentries and defenders of the woods and in addition, ardent oak woodland conservationists to boot. They also happen to be one of the most colourful of all our birds, despite being crows!