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Birding Column: Mexican Jays' Dogged Pack Mentality |
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Mathew Tekulsky The Birdman of Bel Air |
| April 13, 2004 |
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The first time I saw the Mexican jay was in Miller Canyon, Arizona, just south of Sierra Vista in the Huachuca Mountains. I was staying at Beatty's Guest Ranch, which is really an apple orchard and bee farm tucked into a ten-acre (four-hectare) clearing in a valley 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) up into the mountains. Now, Tom and Edith Beatty had a few dogs that ran loose about the place, and each of the dogs had his own doghouse, which was fenced in, except for an entrance area that was always open. In front of each doghouse the Beattys placed a bowl and filled it with dog food, which the dogs were free to eat throughout the day. The dog food that was in these bowls was the dry, chunky kind, just the right size to fit into the beak of a Mexican jay and provide it with a good bit of food value as well. And that is exactly what happened. Throughout the day the Mexican jays would periodically land on the wire fence above the doghouse, make sure that the dog wasn't there, drop down next to the bowl of dog food, pick up a chunk of dog food in their beak, and fly off across the valley and into the trees, with their prize clearly visible to the observer. Although it is in the same genus (Aphelocoma) as the scrub jay, the Mexican jay is a grander, more stately bird. It has a large mass, making it appear about as big as a crow, especially when in flight. Like the scrub jay, the Mexican jay moves about in packs, but when they fly into an area, a group of Mexican jays appears more like a pack of wolves, compared to the cocker spaniel character of the scrub jay. The next time I saw the Mexican jay was at Santa Rita Lodge. Santa Rita is a famous bird-watching site at an elevation of 4,800 feet (1,463 meters) in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. Here, a number of bird feeders have been placed in a long, narrow clearing that is ringed on one side by guest cabins. At first the Mexican jays landed in the nearby trees and checked out their approach route to the feeders. Then, when the coast was clear, they'd fly down to a hopper feeder and help themselves to some mixed birdseed. I decided to have some fun with the Mexican jays, and I placed some unshelled peanuts on the ledge of the hopper feeder. I hoped (indeed, I expected) that the Mexican jays would react to the peanuts in the same way that the scrub jays in my yard in Bel Air, California, do—that is, with relish. They did. In fact, over the next hour, the Mexican jays collected any and all of the unshelled peanuts that I placed for them on the hopper feeder or threw out for them on the ground. When I got back to California, the scrub jays in my yard looked like miniature Mexican jays, but I soon got used to them and began to fall in love with them all over again. Cooperation The Mexican jay lives in habitats where lots of oak trees produce lots of acorns. The jays eat whatever acorns they can and store the rest for later use. Flocks of 8 to 20 or more Mexican jays live in adjacent areas. Individuals in each flock cooperate with each other to defend the territory and even to build nests and feed the young. In 1958 researcher Jerram Brown studied the Mexican jay at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon, and he concluded that the Mexican jay "as represented in southern Arizona displays a form of social organization which is shared by no other American species of bird north of the tropical regions. … Despite the responsibility of specific pairs for their own nests, there were more nest visits (other than for nest robbing) by non-owners than would be expected in a typical territorial species. … The non-owners brought nest material, fed the brooding jay on the nest, actively worked on the nest, or briefly inspected it." Mexican jays will also band together to ward off a common enemy. In 1904 Henry Swarth reported (about the Mexican jay) that "a Red-tail or Swainson hawk sitting on some limb, furnishes a little excitement until he removes to some quieter locality; but the crowning joy of all is to find some wretched fox or wild cat quietly ensconced on some broad, sheltered oak limb. In such a case the one that finds the unhappy victim takes care to let every jay within half a mile [0.8 kilometers] know from his outcry that there is some excitement on hand; and it is nothing unusual to see thirty or forty birds gathered about the object of their aversion, letting him know in no undecided terms just what their opinion of him is." If only people could cooperate as well with each other as the Mexican jay does with members of its own species. Mathew Tekulsky writes a regular National Geographic News column about birding in his backyard and neighborhood in Bel Air, California. Previous columns by the Birdman of Bel Air New Bird-Watching Column: "The Birdman of Bel Air" The California Towhee, Boldly Bland At Home With Hooded Orioles Scrub Jays Go Nuts for Peanuts Northern Mockingbird is a Wary Neighbor Christmas With the Pelicans California-Quail Close Encounter Yosemite Steller's Jay Encounter Banding Birds at Devils Postpile California Condor Close Encounter California Condor Rebound Going Nuts With Wilderness Ravens Hummingbird Chicks Fly the Nest National Geographic Bird Watcher Regularly updated news stories, features, and columns about birds and birding Recent News Stories About Birds Emperor Penguins: Uniquely Armed for Antarctica Expedition Diary: Inside a Rain Forest Quest Heed Birds' Wake-Up Calls, Eco-Group Says Birds Eat Birds as Fish Stocks Fall, Study Says Roadkill Fuels U.K. Trade In Stuffed Rare Owls Has Mysterious Killer of India's Vultures Been Found? |
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