Participant Photo: My Shade of blue

I have lived at this house for 17 years and as long as I can remember, from when I did start feeding the birds, there has been a pair of scrub jays that frequent the feeders and have learned (or taught us) to wait fairly patiently for peanuts in the morning and sometimes evening. We put them in the flower pots, on other objects and sometimes they fall behind or below something and these ingenious little buggers, find EVERY one! This particular pair, which I suspect are not the original birds, one will squawk, but the other one just does a little “squeak”, so I call them Squawkbox and Mumbles, Mumbles seems to be missing a toe or it’s deformed, but he doesn’t let that slow him down. I feel that is the male because Squawkbox is a little smaller in body. I have a very nice variety of birds that come year round and make sure they have plenty of seed, juice for the hummers, jelly for the Orioles while they are here, and water. There are several “regulars” such as these jays, 3 mourning doves that are always around, probably 20 to 30 Mannikin finches, and many, many more. The hummers are a favorite, and the quail which haven’t been coming as much these last two year. One of my favorite pastimes and I even bought a birdcam last year!