As a kid we used to set peanuts up on the railing of the deck to lure the blue jays down. Once they got to a peanut, we, as children, would blast them with water pistols. As entertaining as this was for us, the jays never seemed to phased, as if this was just part of getting such easy free food.
They were/are smart and tough, vocal and generally unafraid of many things.
But they don't look like the blue jays from the baseball team's logo:
There's no white and the crest doesn't eff around.
Also, the book that has local flora and fauna kept referring to them as Steller Jays.
That's what I found on doing some research after returning home.
This is a blue jay:
And what we have at the Cabin are Steller jays. They're very closely related, as the only two species in the genus Cyanocitta. Cyanocitta is in the Corvid family of passerines, some of the smartest and most adaptable birds on Earth. Crows and ravens are likely the best known Corvids. Jays, crows, and magpies are the major subgroups of the family.
Here's a map of the range of the two Cyanocitta, with the Steller jay on the western half:
Then I thought, Aren't bluebirds a thing?
And they are:
That's a western bluebird, the one that lives in California. These are also passerines, just nor corvids, rather, they are thrushes (if that means anything to you).
Back to the beginning of the conversation/post: how cruel is it to blast black jays with water pistols after luring them out into the opening?
In general, and not that this is a justification but, birds are gangster AF.
So I feel a little less bad about it all.
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