Once the cold weather arrived last week (probably for the season), I had different visitors at my feeders.
I hadn’t seen any Blue Jays for weeks, but 3 of them arrived on the first cold morning and started snatching all the peanuts from the platform feeders. I just learned that while not in any sort of danger, the Blue Jay population has declined 27% since the 1960s. And I also didn’t know some of the birds migrate. I had always assumed the Blue Jays in my backyard were year-round residents.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports, “Thousands of Blue Jays migrate in flocks along the Great Lakes and Atlantic coasts, but much about their migration remains a mystery. Some are present throughout winter in all parts of their range. Young jays may be more likely to migrate than adults, but many adults also migrate. Some individual jays migrate south one year, stay north the next winter, and then migrate south again the next year. No one has worked out why they migrate when they do.”
Another new visitor was this female Purple Finch:
I haven’t seen any males yet. She was hanging out at the feeders with some House Finches and Juncos.
