Corvids, which include ravens, crows, and jays, are considered to be the smartest birds in the world. Friday afternoon (
10-2-2020) two members of the family were hanging out in my backyard.
One evil minion of the Dark Lord
and three of the Blues Brothers.
I asked my son to spread some of the bird feeder nut mixture on the far railing of the deck to attract the Steller jays. Normally the jays are not shy about retrieving food in our presence while the crows are very cautious and wait until we are inside before they go for the handouts.
Much to my surprise, my son had no sooner turned his back and taken three steps from the railing when the crow swooped in and grabbed some nuts. Maybe it knew it had to act fast or the jays would get the nuts first.
The crow returned for seconds and thirds.
It is October and the sun's rays are coming in at a much lower angle. I had to take the shots of the jay and the crow on the deck using negative exposure compensation to keep the low rays of the sun from over exposing the shots.
Update: The nuts were left out over night. Saturday morning one crow was retrieving some from the railing while another watched from the top of one of the habitat stumps. All the nuts were gone later in the afternoon.