Sunday, 1 July 2012

[Maine-birds] Is this usual?

Nothing rare or exotic in our area, but we have enjoyed having a very up close view of a blue jay who built a nest in our walking stick tree that was just out side our window of our pantry/laundry room. The female jay sat on the nest thru the heavy rain we had, and survived that. We have been watching her feed the young after they hatched. I thought she was a single Mom, but the male Jay was around some. The jays screamed their alert one day, and we helped "remove" a neighboring cat from our yard, hopefully making the experience one that was unpleasant for it.

The three babies have grown so quickly and the last few days they were hopping out of the nest sitting on branches. We could see the nest becoming quite small for them and kept a good eye on the ground as it looked like they were going to pop out of the nest any moment. We have watched the female jay each evening check our yard for bugs and then head to the nest. Yesterday it seemed that the female was not feeding the young as much and the young were quite restless. This morning when we got up all three of the young are gone.

We have checked around the tree, and do not see any feathers (as in something getting the young) so are hoping they have taken flight and are following their mother around. Is this "usual" to have them leave the nest all at once so quickly (it seems)? We were thinking that they might try out their wings and flying abit near the nest before taking off completely.

Connie Jones
Portland

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