Any Idea What This Jay Is Doing?

While I was out pruning some plants in my side yard, I noticed this Blue Jay at the back of my neighbor's yard. The bird dropped (flew) down out of a tree at the forest's edge (just behind and out of the pic). It landed on the slope of a drainage berm where it spread itself out as seen in the pic below. (Sorry for the poor quality of the pic. The bird was some distance away and I had to max out all forms of zoom to get a pic at all.)

The bird lay motionless in this position for maybe 5-10 minutes during which I saw no other birds, no predators, no humans, no creature of any kind bothering or otherwise interacting with the bird. Just as I was starting to worry about the bird - as it hadn't moved for a while - it finally moved its head to "scratch" at its shoulder with it beak and then got up and flew back up into the tree.

Any clue as to what the bird was doing? (Just naturally curious about these things.)

No head movement at all scutler?

Hi, pelletory,

Not until just before the bird arose and flew away at which point he/she turned head around to the side as if to "scratch" left shoulder then quickly got up and left.

Any idea? If there had been head movement what would that seem to indicate?

At 1st I expected to see another bird appear but when that didn't happen, I thought maybe it's trying to draw a predator away from a nest. The bird lay so motionless that after a while I started thinking it was hurt or sick - this despite the fact that I saw it fly down there and lie down. (It appeared to be sunning itself and/or taking a nap, but I knew that couldn't be right.)

Edited to add that I was some distance away so I guess it is conceivable that I might have missed some slight head movement.

This message was edited Sep 30, 2007 7:07 PM

LOL, I was thinking that he was trying to intimidate a bug.

I've seen them do this also...I always thought they were just taking in the suns' rays. They always puff themselves up and shake their feathers and after a while they come out of their "trance" and fly away.

Well then maybe he was just getting some warmth from the sun. :-)

It's called "Anting" Blue Jays are often seen exhibiting this behavior.

The following is from Wikipedia:

In the behavior called anting, birds rub insects on their feathers, usually ants, which secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid, that can act as an insecticide, miticide, fungicide, or bactericide. It possibly also supplements the bird's own preen oil. Instead of ants, birds can also use millipedes. Over 250 species of bird have been known to ant

Well there you go!

Thanks Ned! :-)

Crows are seen anting very often and since the bluejay is in that family they must have inherited that trait. Usually crows do it right on the ground over an ant hill. If you walk over to where you saw the jay you'll probably find the same.
Jimbo

Sunbathing and/or anting. A very characteristic pose for this!

Resin

Now can anyone explain why my dogs like to roll in areas where garter snake has been?

the only birds i have seen do that are juvenile birds that are learning to fly.

why a dog rolls where an animal or smell has been is to disguise their own smell so they can hunt. sort of like why a deer hunter uses deer scent.

You 'guys' sure are smart! Very interesting stuff. I learn so much here at DG.

Thanks to everyone for all the great responses and ideas.

Special thanks to Old Ned for the answer! And to Len123 for finally explaining why my dog rolls on every dead bug he finds outside.

And in the nastiest mud and even cow manure. I always thought it was to punish me by making me bathe them.

LOL, fchisolm,

I know what you mean. I have a Maltese. He's solid white, of course, with hair down to the ground. When I let him run around the back yard, if he finds the remains of some dead creature or some other fairly disgusting thing he will run right over to it and roll all around on top of it quite gleefully which, quite naturally, makes him smell awful - and, yes, then I have to give him another bath.


Jimbo,

I forgot to mention earlier, but I can't actually walk over to where the bird was or even close because it's at the back of my neighbor's yard. Also, I have a privacy fence around my backyard making it that much more difficult to get anywhere near the area where the bird was. I took the photo from 100ft or more away, and that's as close as I can get without trespassing. However, we do have a lot of fire ants around here and it's quite likely that there would be an ant hill on that berm back near the forest. They often congregate near the forest to avoid the lawn mowers. BTW, do you know if they can tolerate fire ants? That's about the only type of ant I've seen around the area.

Around here the fireants sure have hurt the population of ground nesting birds and mammals.

Scutler,
I don't know about the fire ants. We don't have them up here. But I heard that they can be a real problem like fchisolm said. What do they actually do to the ground nesting birds? Attack the nestlings?

Has anyone ever stepped in a nest of Fire Ants barefoot?

I have when I was down in Fla. visiting realtives ( I wasn't used to not being able to walk around barefoot), it was extremely painful and then very itchy for quite a while. :-(

Not sure what they do to ground nesting birds. I wasn't aware of this problem but can easily imagine that they might literally devour the nestlings. I once put a chicken leg with meat still attached outside, came back a little later to see it covered in fire ants; found it a day or so later completely bare and looking like some dried out and sun bleached relic that had spent months in the desert. That was a bit eerie, like something from a scary movie.

I have stepped in and on their nests and/or otherwise gotten them on me more times than I can count. They usually don't sting until they get a bunch on you. The sting is painful. On me each sting leaves a small white pustule the next day. Not a pleasant experience. However, on one very memorable occasion about 2 years ago I was separating bales of pine straw and putting it down as mulch. A few days earlier I had stopped in the middle of the project due to a rain storm and had left the bales outside on the ground. Apparently some fire ants had built a nest in one of the bales. I wasn't wearing gloves. I didn't realize that my hands were covered with fire ants until they started to sting. I had as many as 20 bites in the area between 2 fingers and maybe close to 100 bites on one hand. Due to the sheer number of bites in the same area and the concentration of poison, my hand became so swollen that I could neither open nor close it for about 2 weeks. The swelling stopped just short of the point where my Dr would have to cut the skin open to relieve the internal pressure. The skin on the back of my hand turned red-purple. The pain in my hand was such that I required strong pain killers. The skin inside my hand was dying but the skin on the outside was not. It was very strange. I could feel the burning pain 'inside' the hand but couldn't reach it. Later as it started to heal, the area inside the hand both itched and burned at the same time but I could not scratch it. Scratching the outer skin had no effect. The damaged tissue was inside. I learned quite a lesson that day - and the weeks after. Now I am careful about putting my unprotected hands anywhere that ants might be hiding.

Thats how it was for my foot; I didn't count the bites but every area of my foot was covered in loads those white small white pustules.

What a painful and nasty experience!

Sorry you went through that too scutler.

Yes, the ants kill and devour the baby birds as soon as they crack the egg. Many of our ground nesting birds are now hard to find. The quail hunters are limited to just released birds. But it is not the birds only. The rabbit population is way down from what it was before the fire ants moved into the area. When there was broadcast treatment we would have a three year increase in nesting birds and rabbits. But broadcast theatments also hurt other wild species and fish. Broadcast treatments are no longer legal. Only mound treatments are allowed so many ant mounds are overlooked. Another example of how an introduced species threatens native species. We will have imported fireants and they will continue to spread north until a way to destroy them without hurting the enviroment is discovered. When I farmed I tried everyway imagined to get rid of them. People have died from their bites after being trapped by natural disasters or accidents. Many times after crawling under farm equipment to make repairs I would have to come out of my clothes to get the fire ants off me. And yes Scutler, when it rains the ants will make nest in bales of any kind of straw. They will also climb vegetable stalks and flower stalks in dry periods to eat the fruit. Fire ant mound treatment is one of our best selling items at southern Wal-marts in the late summer and fall.

Yikes!! Coming North?

Who brought these things over?

The red fire ants(the worst) were thought to have been in dirt used as a ship's ballast. They are from South America. They entered the US at the Port of Mobile in 1930. The black fire ants entered in 1918 in the same place. The red fire ants have almost replaced the imported black ones. They have killed out our two native fire ants. http://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/lockley.htm

Thanks for the information Frank!

Some years back when my mother had been sick for a while I went to stay with her for a while and help her with things. In the back yard I found a fire ant bed the size of a cocktail table, I kid you not. In those days I knew nothing about gardening, yard work, ants, etc. She had a good sized lawn tractor. When I got ready to mow the lawn, I tried to drive over the thing. It stood higher than the bottom of the mower but I figured the mower would easily push the loose dirt down. The thing was SO huge that when I got the mower straddled over the top of it, I actually managed to 'beach' the mower so that even at max speed/power the mower was stuck for a time during which all I could see were 'gazillions' of white eggs pouring out the mower's side shoot. Eventually the mower managed to spew out enough of the ants, bed and all, to get traction and start moving again.

After that I got some mound poison and went on a mission to kill them all...until one day when I looked over in the neighbor's pasture to see giant 'man-eating' mounds everywhere. At that point, I knew it was pretty much useless to even try to kill the ones in her yard.

BTW, I believe that I read somewhere that scientists are currently testing a biological control that parasatises the ants and apparently only the ants. However, I believe this biological entity will also have to be imported from somewhere else; hence the need to do careful studies before moving forward with what is hoped to be the "cure".

One of the problems now is that since the imported fire ants have gotten rid of our native stinging ants; when and if we ever get rid of them there will be a void. We will only have the sugar and spice ants left. Then what will certain of our lizards, toads and maybe some birds eat? Any time man destroys one species he endangers twenty more. What if the imported fire ant turned out to be the cure for cancer?

Can I make a suggestion? Would you please keep those things down there!!!!

Really!!!!!! :-))