As I had hoped, Chuck & Joan Tague helped me find a Florida scrub-jay at Merritt Island last week. Er, rather… the scrub-jay found me.
He showed up with his family just as I expected, but of the three jays only this one visited my hat.
By the time he hopped off my head I was laughing so hard I couldn’t ask him how he learned to do this.
Success!
(photo by Chuck Tague)
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Is this common amongst the species or do you think these birds are accustomed to people? Most birds I’ve seen, except for pigeons, steer clear of humans. I find this extremely interesting.
In most places, Florida scrub-jays are so intensively studied that they are quite used to humans. In some locations almost all of them are banded. The other factor is that humans often bring handouts so the scrub-jays have learned to check out people when they show up. Though Chuck, Joan and I didn’t bring food we benefited from their learned behavior. And this just occurred to me: I’ll bet the scrub-jays know they’re safest on top of our heads. We can’t reach them & they can fly away quickly.
You can start a new life list: “Birds on my head”
Some friendly advice: Watch out for eagles.
These scrub jays will come and peck at your cooler if you are having a picnic near where they “live.” They are very tame and we were not supposed to feed them.