In early April we noticed two Stellar Jays starting to collect pine needles and other plant matter from the ground. It became obvious they were building a nest in the pine tree limbs right outside the large window in our house. We would be privileged to a couple months of watching nature unfold right outside our window. Follow along for more on the story.😀
After about a week of building, the nest seemed ready to use. For the next month or so all we really saw was the tail feathers of one of the jays sticking out of the nest as they warmed the eggs. There was always one on the nest with the other jay out gathering food for its partner.
We had a pretty volatile spring with a lot of wind, rain and even snow. The jay held its post even as the wind sometimes swayed the branch a good four or five feet from its normal position. I was somewhat amazed at the resilience of the nest. They only both left the nest when there were raiding attacks by the gray squirrels, but more on that later.
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Fianlly after a few weeks we were able to catch a glimpse of the birds. I slapped on my Tamron 75-300mm lens and took some full zoom shots.
I was able to capture them beginning to raise their heads and check out their surroundings.
One of them even started to try out his wings.
I don't think his two siblings were quite as ready to think about leaving the nest yet.
For the time being though it was back to observing their new world. That would all be changing the next day.
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As I finished up these shots I heard the now familiar distress call of the jays as some commotion was happening off to my right. On more than one occasion I had seen the jays have to defend their nest and young against marauding gray squirrels.
On this occasion our cat had decided to get in on the action. Here you can her waiting for the squirrel, who is just barely visible on the left behind the tree, to run along the fence into her waiting grasp.
After her failed attempt to grab the squirrel our cat backed herself up against a tree to continue stalking the squirrel in the tree on the right. The cat has a several year history with the jays and I think backing herself up to the tree was her way of protecting herself from attack from above on her backside. 🤣
As the chaos ensued on the ground below the birds lowered themselves into the nest and continued to observe.
The next day the one baby had grown even bolder and was now standing on the edge of the nest.
A bit later we would see him dancing along the branch showing off his new found skills. His need to leave the nest may have led to the disaster that happened next.
I was in another part of the yard when suddenly I heard the jays distress calls and saw one of them swooping down on my fleeing cat.
I investigated and found the nest had tumbled out of the tree and the three babies were on the ground. I quickly got the cat inside, got my camera, and took some pictures while we contacted a bird rescue society on how to proceed. They suggested putting the fallen nest in a box and attaching to the same tree as far up as we could. They said the parents would know how to handle things.
While the babies were quite calm and even opened their beaks to eat as my gloved hands came to put them in the nest, the parents were not happy with us at all. Some of their shrill cries seemed almost human and I could almost feel the terror they felt not knowing what I was trying to do with their young ones.
As you can see here two of the babies were in pretty good shape while the third one looked a little hurt. When I had picked him up off the ground he looked like he may have hurt his leg and wing during the fall. Or maybe he just wasn't as developed yet as the other two.
Eventually I got the box affixed to the tree amidst some attacks by the parents. Now I know how my cat feels. lol. With in an hour the one baby had left the nest again. we pretty much stayed away from the area and when I check a few days later the box and nest were empty. I like to think they all survived but whatever happened nature took its course, with a little help from us. 😀
Please feel free to make comments or ask me any questions about this post.
Photos taken by me, @oldmans, with a Nikon D3300 and some Lightroom post processing.
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Thanks for looking and enjoy your day!