I've been watching the regular Blue Jays that come to my yard for months and it's been a blast watching the fledglings grow up.  I've also noticed different personalities amongst the crowd.

There's one clown that's been hanging around since June when he showed up without  a Mom or Dad.  We assumed he was orphaned as he would sit looking through my kitchen window from the cedar hedge and whining all day long.  He first thought he was a woodpecker as he took his cues from the other birds that come and go all day long.  He used to try to attach himself to the feeder pole and climb it like he saw the Downys do.  He gave up on that after tumbling down to the ground a few times, but he continued to watch all the other birds and us for cues.

We have a very small black female squirrel that comes to the yard everyday, now she's a polite little thing, she's never raided the feeders and contented herself with the seed droppings under the feeders.  We decided that she deserved a peanut for her politeness, and eventually she started coming to the backdoor and taking peanuts right out of my hand.   Well, that Blue Jay sat in the cedars and in the Mugo pine watching me feed that squirrel and to my surprise he started dropping peanuts from the platform feeder for her when she came around.  The first time he did this I thought he was just being sloppy, but when he kept doing it, I realized that he had taken his cue from me because he didn't do it for any other squirrel.

As winter approaches I've noticed that he's decided that he should be doing something, so he started keeping track of the peanuts in the platform feeder.  He hops into it when I fill it and picks up each one and places in a pile in the corner of the feeder as if he's counting them.   I tried something this weekend, I placed another pile of peanuts on the tiny porch outside the kitchen door.  He watched me and as soon as I closed the door he hopped down, gathered the peanuts up and placed them into the pile in the platform feeder!  I've also noted that he's starting to resent the other Jays (about 15-20 of them) that come in for peanuts all the time.  He'll have a nut in his beak and actually dive bomb the other Jays as they come in to get a nut.  Not that they pay much attention to him, but it's getting wild...;)

On Saturday he did the funniest thing.  I was looking out the living room window at the birdbath and backyard feeder and I heard this definite "Hawk" cry.  I know Blue Jays can do a 'red tailed ' hawk, but this little guy did the cry of the local Sharp Shinned Hawk that's been haunting our yard since last January.   Anyhow, the birds scattered as soon as he did it and he jumped down from one of the pines and strutted around the yard with his crest up as if he was really proud that he'd made them all run.     His prank didn't last long, as soon as the other birds realized that they'd been fooled a Grackle and another Blue Jay dived bombed him and he ended up with a real whack at the back of his head!