This is my entry for the Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 11! The theme for this round is "Photo Edit". You can learn more about the contest and how to enter HERE!
All of my photo edits feature a Blue Jay that visited my yard and the first photo edit is my entry!
Of course, I couldn't do just one photo edit so here are just a few more...
Blue Jays are a colorful bird but the ones in my neighborhood tend to be a bit aggressive so while I love to see them, I try not to encourage them to visit my yard anymore. I do that by using safflower seeds in my feeders which they don't particularly care for. I also no longer give them peanuts which they do love .. a bit too much. I gave a couple of peanuts to a Blue Jay last year and it became quite the little feathered "stalker". It was almost two months before I could safely walk in my back yard again. It would wait for me and dive bomb me and once got me on the head. Luckily, I had the hood up on my jacket as I remembered many years ago a Blue Jay doing the same to my mother and sister at the house I grew up in. This Blue Jay would even swoop on the porch sometimes and perch on the front fence in wait for me. Funny thing too is that it mainly seemed to do it to me so they are smart and I think they do recognize certain people.
It is against the law to purposely hurt wild birds here and that is something that I would never do anyway so I just tried to stay out of its sight for a while which turned into almost two months. Although, I believe I can still hear it calling every now and then for a peanut still.
Once in a while I will see a Blue Jay outside but it doesn't stay long once it knows that I only have the "yucky" safflower seeds in the feeders.
If I had a bigger yard then I would probably have a feeder far away in the yard and away from the house for them but that is not the case and I can't take the chance of one swooping down and possibly hurting anyone in my family, a delivery person that might come up to the house, some of the other birds that come to the feeders and even the outside cats.
I still think they are a really pretty bird though and on the occasion that one does fly near the house I do have my camera at the ready but not peanuts though ... definitely not peanuts! 😉
Thank you @nelinoeva for the Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest!!
Thank you @melinda010100 for #featheredfriends!!
Thank you also to all the sponsors and @oks2crypto for judging!!
All photos and text by me @deerjay. All rights reserved.
