Blue jays do, indeed, cache food. I've watched as a single jay crammed up to 80 sunflower seeds into its bulging, expandable throat and esophagus before flying off to cache them in the ground, and repeat this many times/day. Our gray jays do the same with peanuts, mealworms, suet and a number of other offerings, except they use their sticky saliva to form a food bolus which they typically attach to a conifer tree for later retrieval. Incredibly, researchers believe they can cache - and retrieve, through spatial memory - up to 100,000 caches/season. So next time someone throws out "bird brain" as an epithet, you may want to drop that fact bomb on them.
Steve Wilson -----Original Message----- From: Minnesota Birds <MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU> On Behalf Of MOU-NET automatic digest system Sent: Friday, November 5, 2021 12:00 AM To: MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU Subject: MOU-NET Digest - 3 Nov 2021 to 4 Nov 2021 (#2021-198) There are 2 messages totaling 80 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. birds caching food (2) ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2021 17:43:49 -0500 From: Judith Clayton <judit...@theriver.com> Subject: birds caching food I’m wondering how common it is for birds to caching food? Currently, I’m offering peanuts in the shell to Blue Jays. Their usual behavior is to pick up a peanut in the shell and fly off with it: often to the White Spruce trees in my back yard. I can’t say that I’ve actually seen them caching a peanut, but I wonder. I think that I’ve seen crows caching seeds from my feeders rather close distance from the feeders. Also, do pelagic birds or other birds cache food? Just now I’m thinking about the “butcher bird” or Shrikes. I’m looking forward to your comments. TIA Judy in Douglas county, Alexandria, Mn Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished Lao Tzu ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2021 23:10:17 -0500 From: Michael Koutnik <m.a.kout...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: birds caching food Hi Judith, You may want to read this nice article by Jim Willams in the Star Tribune earlier this week. He talks explicitly about this behavior. https://m.startribune.com/migrating-blue-jays-pay-a-visit-to-a-minnesota-backyard/600110098/ Best, Mike Koutnik Sent from my iPhone On Nov 4, 2021, at 5:43 PM, Judith Clayton <judit...@theriver.com> wrote: I’m wondering how common it is for birds to caching food? Currently, I’m offering peanuts in the shell to Blue Jays. Their usual behavior is to pick up a peanut in the shell and fly off with it: often to the White Spruce trees in my back yard. I can’t say that I’ve actually seen them caching a peanut, but I wonder. I think that I’ve seen crows caching seeds from my feeders rather close distance from the feeders. Also, do pelagic birds or other birds cache food? Just now I’m thinking about the “butcher bird” or Shrikes. I’m looking forward to your comments. TIA Judy in Douglas county, Alexandria, Mn Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished Lao Tzu ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly. ------------------------------ End of MOU-NET Digest - 3 Nov 2021 to 4 Nov 2021 (#2021-198) ************************************************************ ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly.
