It was not long after I had discarded on to the lawn, the rather ‘tired’ looking peanuts from the bird feeder and refilled it with fresh nuts, when a flash of white, pink and dazzling blue landed in the apple tree. It was a handsome jay and with sharp black eyes it surveyed the scene before ‘bouncing’ down onto the lawn.
I watched through binoculars from the kitchen window as it quickly gulped a number of whole peanuts before flying off. Within twenty minutes the bird returned and this time I counted the number of peanuts it swallowed: sixteen, the last two could still be seen gripped in its partly open bill. I threw out another handful of peanuts and over the next hour the bird made a further five visits, the last two hampered by the bullying tactics of a pair of magpies. Nonetheless, I estimated that this bird, about the same size as a jackdaw and certainly the most colourful of our corvids, collected over sixty peanuts in total!! The maximum I counted in a single visit was twenty! I could have sworn that I could see its cheeks and throat bulging with the nuts and subsequent investigation revealed that the bird does in fact have a sublingual pouch in which they store and carry food.
The jay is mainly a bird of woodlands and not a common bird in my garden with usually only one or two sightings annually but this year with the poor acorn crop, their main food source, they have become a frequent visitor to many gardens. No doubt the peanuts have been stashed safely underground - hopefully, to be retrieved in leaner times over the coming winter months.
