Mr. Manners

There’s a new Blue Jay visiting my feeder (I can spot him by his frayed right wing feather), and he has the table manners of a crow. Mr. Manners flings nuts and seeds everywhere until he finds exactly the seed he wants. The squirrels think he’s awesome because he’s tossing them all kinds of free food. I’m not amused.

After watching him closely for awhile, I determined he was only picking out whole kernels of corn. Since there’s barely any corn in my seed mix to begin with, our relationship was going to be a rocky one.

I’m up for a challenge, so yesterday I stopped off at a garden center and bought several pounds of corn. Luckily for Mr. Manners, the stuff is cheap. I took a handful and piled it on the side of my feeder. The plan seemed to work. He stopped scattering birdseed everywhere and instead spent the day filling his pouch with corn and flying around the neighborhood caching it.

Now the squirrels aren’t happy, but I am.