[EBB Sightings] acorns and jays

  

Dear Birders:

Bob Battigan mentions in his sighting today that every Scrub Jay was
carrying an acorn.  My large live oak has produced a prodigious crop of
acorns this year inducing a frenzy among the local Scrub Jay
population.
At first I thought the jays might be mobbing a raptor, but instead they
were harvesting acorns while warning off all contenders.  The racket
has been incessant.  And at night raccoons rumble across the roof under
an overhanging limb, sometimes dropping onto the roof bringing me
upright.

The local Steller's Jays who hang out in the conifers across the street
don't seem to participate in this annual orgy.

I've read fascinating articles about the symbiotic relationship in the
High Sierra between the white-barked pines and the harvesters of their
nuts -- the Clark's Nutcracker.  They have effectively spread the pines
across the mountain slopes while providing themselves with storehouses
of nutritious food for the the winter, exhibiting a remarkable memory
for where they buried their caches.

I'm not sure about our local jays.  In this land of plenty, winter
survival doesn't require the same level of recall. 

My oak, brought as a seedling from the Monterey Peninsula 50 years ago
is the progenitor of oaks big and small on my hill thanks to the Shrub
Jays with some help from the fox squirrels.  If it weren't for the
planted exotics, this grassy hillside would now be an oak savanna. 
What a lovely thought!  

Phila Rogers


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