bluejay food

April 10, 2007 6:01 AM

Feeding bluejays? I have a new bluejay nest ten feet off my balcony. Any ideas for bluejay fodder that will not attract doves, pigeons, mockingbirds, starlings, sparrows, crows, squirrels, mice, or rats?
posted by bukvich to home & garden (17 comments total)

Easy. Put out whatever you like, close to the nest. The jays will drive of anything that tries to get anywhere near, up to small elephants.
posted by anaelith at 6:27 AM on April 10, 2007

And anaelith does mean whatever. One of the greatest delicacies for the bluejays which nested near my parents house in Vermont was dry dog food. Your mileage, of course, may vary.
posted by The Confessor at 6:33 AM on April 10, 2007

Or dry cat food. Ours love it. Just make sure you put the food out early enough that it's gone by evening.
posted by clarkstonian at 6:43 AM on April 10, 2007

We have scrub jays, not blue jays, but they're probably close enough for your purposes. They love peanuts in the shell, which we put on a tray feeder outside the window. Despite easy access to the feeder, other birds can't deal with the shells and leave the peanuts alone. This is the only food we've found that other birds like pigeons and sparrows won't take. Oh, crows will take the peanuts too but we think crows are pretty cool so that's fine with us.
posted by Quietgal at 7:35 AM on April 10, 2007

Squirrels love themselves some peanuts, too. The battle-of-the-wills between them and the 'jays is pretty funny. Scurry vs swoop tactics.
posted by desuetude at 7:56 AM on April 10, 2007

Yeah, bluejays are notorious for using their size and, er, boisterousness to dominate feeding stations; the more usual question is "How do I keep bluejays from chasing away all the other birds?" You should be fine.
posted by mediareport at 7:59 AM on April 10, 2007

Bluejays are really aggressive and smart. I have to put cages around my feeders to keep them away, otherwise they drive every other bird away. However, you will attract rodents no matter what kind of food you put out, I think.

Just a thought - feeding birds on your balcony is going to mean lots of bird crap in the area, including your balcony. If you have small children, be sure to remove it daily so it won't inadvertently end up in the kids' mouths through touching. (It isn't good for grownups either)
posted by Flakypastry at 8:03 AM on April 10, 2007

Bluejays are really smart and aggressive. My mom feeds them peanuts. The jays will pick up each peanut, determine the heaviest one, and then fly off with it. If you have a nest close by, I would think that they would fend off any competition.
posted by Ostara at 8:15 AM on April 10, 2007

One note about bluejays - my mother routinely feeds the jays around her house peanuts every morning. If she forgets, they'll sit on the patio and squawk and squawk and squawk until she comes down and feeds them.

Bluejays, while pretty, are not a bird you want to inadvertently domesticate.
posted by itchi23 at 9:19 AM on April 10, 2007

Blue Jays are mean birds that will eat the young of other species. I'm no fan of theirs. Remember in "To Kill a Mockingbird" when Jem gets a bb gun? Atticus tell him "you can kill all the jays you want, but never kill a mockingbird."
posted by wsg at 10:29 AM on April 10, 2007

The exact line is "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
posted by wsg at 10:32 AM on April 10, 2007

Jays will take food and cache it which means not all of the food they take is eaten, and having all the food gone does not necessarily mean that they are hungry.

Jays also like "meat". I was once taking care of a baby Jay with a broken leg. I would sometimes catch grasshoppers and put them in his cage. When he was better and starting to fly, if I let him out of the cage, he would hide the grasshoppersr between pages of a book.

If you want to give the Jays a treat, a bowl of meal worms would probably be appreciated.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 1:53 PM on April 10, 2007

Please be careful. Blue Jays will kill you dead.

We used to have one pseudo-domesticated Jay who, if we neglected to put some goat chow out for him, he'd come right into the house through an open window. We had to lock him out. Vicious little bastard.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:05 PM on April 10, 2007

Jays in my neighborhood love the peanuts-in-the-shell, too. I think they like breaking 'em open better than just nuts just sitting there shelled on the platform.

One suggestion I've heard for this time of year: save your eggshells and put them out for crows, jays and other intelligent, aggressive birds. The idea is that birds preparing to lay eggs crave the calcium, and may raid the nests of other birds for eggs or young to eat to make up the deficiency. Putting out eggshells is supposed to give the crows and jays what they need, while helping out populations of other, smaller birds that may be under more environmental stress. (I don't have any actual studies to back that up, but I've read it in several places...feel free to chime in if you have more info.)
posted by gimonca at 3:31 PM on April 10, 2007

Also, you could pick up a tub of mealworms from your local pet store. Keep 'em in the fridge and put out a couple at a time. When they're cold, they don't move/crawl away.
posted by ApathyGirl at 5:17 PM on April 10, 2007

What mediareport said. Most people want to keep the jays away. Bullys the lot of them.
posted by vronsky at 8:31 PM on April 10, 2007

I asked a master falconer about this and he recommended walnuts in the shell as being heavy and tough enough to be ignored by any less powerful birds, though crows and ground critters are still an issue. You may have to train the jays to eat them by first offering them shelled, then cracked then with a hole bored in them.
posted by Manjusri at 2:34 PM on April 12, 2007