bird nerge
I haven’t seen Tzipi yet this week, but last time he came by a many times, often accompanied by his girlfriend who we now call Missitzipi. However, I did have an interesting encounter with some imposters. Towards dusk, a male and female were sitting on our fence, so I grabbed some almonds and headed outside assuming it was Tzipi & Missitzipi. I stood there for a moment and the jays kept staring at me quizzically, moving their heads around to get a better view of me. I then realized that they folks were NOT T & M. They were both smaller and the male was not nearly as well groomed as Tzipi. So I stood there for another moment or so and then said, “Look, you two, I’m not going to spend my time training other jays to eat out of my hand,” and I went inside. I haven’t seen them again although I’m sure I will eventually.
K. and I were up at Sibley today, relaxing and gazing at the great view. We were watching a murder of crows flying about when we realized there was a small hawk — maybe a Cooper’s Hawk? (I didn’t have my ‘nocs) — among them. Then we realized there were two small hawks. Everyone was flying around, and no one seemed to be attacking anyone.
Then we saw a red-tailed hawk join the same, and s/he was doing the same — swooping, diving, but apparently not attacking. They all looked like they were just have fun. I looked around the Internet and haven’t seen anyone else commenting on this phenomenon. All the posts I can find are about a group of crows attacking a hawk (which I’ve certainly seen) or a hawk occasionally getting the a crow. Neither K. or I could detect any aggression in the exchange, which went on for about 1/2 hour.
I have never experienced any “magical forces” at Sibley, but it is one of my favorite places to go. I can never believe that its magnificent view is only a few minutes from where I live.
Some folks, though, have their own supernatural ideas about the place…
This was the only photo I could find of a hawk hanging out with crows in a non-combatitive state.
November 2011
We recently went on a hike where we saw a huge “murder” of crows — maybe a hundred — and noticed that there was one red-tailed hawk flying amongst them. The photo below is of some of the scene below I can’t really find the hawk. I still have hopes of getting photographic evidence.
Please keep sending in your crow/hawk stories, and don’t forget to include where you are writing from. Thanks!
I was working on my bike in the yard yesterday when I heard a soft sound that was kind of like “chuck, chuck, chuck”. Sort of like a clucking chicken. I looked up and saw Tzipi perched on bird bath. I thought perhaps he was making that sound to get my attention. I went over and gave him some nuts. Then he made the sound again. The female jay who I have often seen came to the yard. It turns out Tzipi was speaking to her, not to me — he was inviting her to the nut feast. But when she saw me, she flew up to the tree. When I went back to working on my bike, she came down and ate from the bird feeder. Apparently she is not keen on Tzipi’s take-nuts-from-humans routine. I’m sure I will be making attempts to woo her over now that I now she’s Tzipi’s girlfriend.
Tzipi seems to have completely lost interest in us. Before I went away for a week I noticed he was molting and I was wondering if that was having any effect on his diminishing visits. He came by last Friday and I noticed his molt was almost over. But apparently, so are his regular visits. We didn’t see him all weekend. We have bored the poor bird out of our lives.
The upside is that we have been able to rehang out bird feeder and now have the usual array of house finches, red-breasted nuthatches, juncos, towhees, and titmice visiting us, along with other scrub jays and the occasional stellar jay. And, as always, the hummingbirds.
I do hope we will continue to see Tzipi from time to time.
I saw this article yesterday at my acupuncturist’s office (The Amazing Dr. Chung!) reiterating that corvids are smarter than dogs and cats.
As I was writing this I thought about Heckle and Jeckle, who I thought were crows until a moment ago. Probably because I was too young to read when I watched these cartoons. Apparently they are magpies. In any case, the first nightmare I remember having was about them. If you watch this video (I dare you!)I think the creepiness is apparent as they outsmart a cat. I can’t believe this used to be suitable children’s entertainment.
After some thought, we decided to keep Tzipi’s name the same despite his gender. Mostly because we are used to it, but also since he is not a pet, what does it matter what we call him?
Our schedule has been erratic for the past couple of weeks and it seems that Tzipi has kind of moved on from his obsession with us and our nuts. We think this is partly because he is being watched by other jays and doesn’t want them honing in on his used-to-be-secret food source. He may be lying low, temporarily or permanently. Also, he probably has a hoard the size of a mountain by now.
So he just comes by from time to time. He came by when my friend W was here Tuesday evening, so I introduced W to Tzipi and he came right over and took nuts from W’s hand. W was quite pleased. He suggested that I teach Tzipi some tricks. Hmm.
Yesterday it became clear that Tzipi is probably a male (and we will probably change his name). His latest behavior is, if we’re are home, T (how I will refer to him in this posting) will spend and inordinate amount of time staring at us. He seemed to spend a majority of yesterday hopping from place to place staring at me, whether I was in the yard or in the condo. He now uses the trapeze, the wall, or a chair as his perch for this — previously he would only sit on the fence.
My attempt to play with him a bit in terms of hiding nuts on my person or otherwise making him work for them fell flat. I tried having my hand closed and this just exasperated him. He kept hopping from place to place trying to figure out at what angle he could just dive down and get the nuts. K has claimed several times that T has sat in his hand or his arm but even if I use the same techniques as he (he claims it’s about the arm position), T will not land on me except very occasionally and very briefly. He also, on occasion, seems to purposely toss a nut out of my hand and onto the ground rather than grabbing it. I don’t know why he would do that since it’s more work for him.
He doesn’t seem to be getting the “count to four” concept yet.
So you’re wondering… why do I think he’s a male?
Yesterday as he was sitting on the fence another Jay appeared, much duller in color. That was the first clue, as female birds are almost always duller in color so they’re less noticeable when they sit on their nests. So T is bright, most probably T= male. I tried to go outside to get close to Ms. Jay, but she just flew off. About ten minutes later I heard some very loud screeching in the yard. Let it be known the T almost never screeches in the yard; he’s always very quiet, as if he’s in stealth mode. It seems reasonable that he would be quiet so as not to draw attention to His Yard. Evidently, though some other male Jay saw Ms. Jay come down and decided to have a look. Oh, well, that did NOT go over well with T. There’s was a full-on fight, during which T tore out one of the other Jay’s tailfeathers (it’s still in the yard). Other Jay took to picking up dirt clods with his beak and flinging them at T. Yes, actual mud-slinging occurred. After Other Jay flew off, I went to give T a nut as if to say, silly bird, I wouldn’t feed another Jay. But he was too agitated to take it, and appeared concerned that Other Jay might be watching and get ideas about taking nuts from me. Indeed, within 30 seconds T and I noticed Other Jay perched on the roof next door, watching us intently. T flew off.
He came back about an hour later, and commenced his staring marathon anew. We’ll see if Other Jay or Ms. Jay appear again. It’s obvious that T feels that this human-giving-nuts situation is worth fighting beak and nail for.
Finally, K cleverly suggested naming T “Topol” after another famous Israeli I am fond of (who I just read was unbelievably still playing Tevye up until last year. Frankly, for me, there is NO OTHER TEVYE. I’m speaking to you, Mr. Fierstein).. I tried using this name this morning but kept forgetting. I’ll try again later.
My next goal for Tzipi is to teach her to count to four. This is so she knows that The Buffet is closed and she shouldn’t hang around waiting for more. So each time we feed her now we give her four nuts, one at a time. Yesterday, though, K said he put a bunch of little crumbs in his hand and she stayed there for a long time eating them. So I thought I’d try this too this morning, but she didn’t seem keen on sitting on my hand for very long. So, despite this brief detour, we will return later to the four-nut rule.
Being that I am The Nerge, I have started assiduously researching Scrub Jays. Tzipi, I’ll have you know, is a Western Scrub Jay, or Aphelocoma californica californica. The Western Scrub Jay has been shown to be one of the most intelligent animals studied, according to University of Cambridge Comparative Psychology of Learning and Cognition Lab. They can remember up to 200 caches of food; they can remember how long ago they created each stash (episodic memory); they remember the past and plan for the future; and most importantly, they can guess the intentions of other Jays. If a Jay who is storing nuts sees another Jay watching them, they know that Jay may plan to come back and steal from their hoard. They know this, because they’d do the same thing. So they wait until the other Jay is gone and then restash their hoard elsewhere. There is no other animal that has been documented to engage in such well-planned and perceptive behavior.
Western Scrub Jays also live an average of nine years, so Tzipi may be around for a while.
Also, although they are not sexually dimorphic, the males may be have stronger white “eyebrows” — which indicates that Tzipi may be a male after all.
I also discovered (although I guess as much) that I am not the first person to try taming a Jay nor to write about it on the Internet. On the page The Way of the Jay, the author, Diane Porter, uses a different methodology to tame Jimmy the Jay, with similar results. Reading her story also gave me an idea to nut offer the nuts so easily — keep them in my fist, or pretend to hide them on my person and make a game of it.
Ms. Porter also writes about bird taming in general, ending her instructions with
Start any time of the year. I’ve hand tamed birds in Southern California who’ve never seen snow. But I think it goes faster and easier in winter. Whenever it happens, it will be summer in your heart.
Ain’t it the truth.
Frankly, I do have mixed feeling about bird taming. I feel guilty about disturbing the natural order of things, and getting a wild animal to trust people (which it shouldn’t). K did remind me that Tzipi is urban wildlife. She’s used to bird feeders, and her biggest predator are domestic cats. There’s nothing really natural about the situation to begin with.
So, residual guilt aside, I’d like to attempt her guide to Hand Feeding Wild Birds if Tzipi ever relinquishes full control of our yard.
Next I’ve ordered three books from the library on corvidae, so my research continues.
After our first breakthrough, I would spend some time every non-work day watching for this Jay. When she would come to the yard, I would go outside and stand and wait with a nut in my outstretched palm. The time it took her to take the nut steadily decreased. I tried to see if she preferred almonds or walnuts by putting one of each in my hand. She outsmarted me. She took the almond, put it on the fence, and then seconds later took the walnut. She spent a minute getting them both in her beak and then flew off. At this point she would always fly off to eat the nuts, and would only come to me if I stood near her at the far corner of the fence.
At this point the name Tzipi popped into my head, so I started calling her by that name. (It’s also the name of the first women leader of the opposition party in Israel, who is the second woman to be foreign minister, a vegetarian, and pro-LGBT.)
My next goal for Tzipi the Jay was to have her come to me in the middle of the yard. This was not hard, and actually from this point her learning and tameness began to accelerate. At first she would fly to the birdbath — a halfway point — and then to my hand, but after a few days of this she started hopping down the fence until she was closer to me and then flying to me. Then things got pretty comfortable.
I introduced her to K, and she took nuts from him without hesitation.
Last week she started sometimes sitting on my or K’s hand for a few moments before grabbing the nut. She also would sit and stare at us if we were at our garden table. Although I know she is just waiting for more nuts, she also seems to enjoy watching us. It is funny to be actively watched by a bird rather than being the watcher.
