I thought this was a fun contrast of jays feeding at Sax Zim Bog. Here we have the gray jay feeding on the deer rib cage–something that they would feed on naturally in the wild if say a wolf had killed a deer and the cage was exposed to the elements:
And here we have a blue jay feeding on a suet cage with a flavored suet cake–suet that has evolved over the last few decades. It’s gone from being just fat from a carcass to a melted down substance with nuts and seeds and who knows what else added to it for flavor.
I love the blue jay bouncing on the thin branch and the cage swings to and fro.
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Can you imagine trying to eat pure fat at -20ยบ?
How can they do that?
Yes, yes I can imagine eating pure fat…at any temperature.
One of my fondest (eh? that’s sick) childhood memories is my older but apparently not wiser brother picking up a blue jay egg. It proceeded to inflict what was not the first, or last, suture-requiring head wound on his noggin. Was it a concerned parent protecting potential offspring, or a hankering for some head fat? Sadly, the answer remains a mystery.
Every time I am frustrated, I will think of that jay bobbing for that suet…
I have a suet feeder attached to the railing on my fire escape in Brooklyn NY. It attracts sparrows, pigeons, house finches, starlings, and–last but not least–Monk Parrots. I put it up a number of years ago specifically for the downy woodpeckers, but there haven’t been any woodpeckers in years. I’m guessing that may be a sad legacy of West Nile.
It may not be a matter of West Nile but just a lack of dead and dying trees to provide food and shelter for the downy woodpeckers.