Blue Jay Stake

It isn't actually blue.

There is no blue pigment in a Blue Jay. Not a trace. The color comes from the structure of the feather itself, which scatters light back at you in that particular way. Grind one up and the blue disappears entirely — what's left is a dull brown. Every jay you have ever admired was, in a manner of speaking, a trick of the light.

We had this one cut mid-perch, crest up, because a jay at rest still looks like it is about to do something.

They are also among the cleverest birds that will ever come to your feeder. A single jay may bury several thousand acorns in a fall, one at a time, scattered across its territory. It does not recover all of them, and the ones it forgets come up as oaks. There is good reason to think jays helped push the oak forests northward after the last ice age, one buried acorn at a time.

They mimic hawks, too. A jay will do a passable Red-shouldered Hawk from the top of a pine and watch the feeder clear.

Loud, bright, and not much bothered by any of it.

Set it where it will hold the eye — a fence post along the drive, or the trunk of a tree you look at often.

Specifications