[EBB Sightings] Killer Shrub Jays

Phila, Isn't this what jays do (i.e., Nature at work  [not "slaughtering", but simply surviving in their own way) ?  

Would you have them _be_ anything else ?

Hopefully, the fledgers will also _be_ jays.

It seems like the bird feeder --casting a far wider web than you may have imagined it would-- also was "just doing its job".... :>)

Peter


At 04:45 p.m. 01/06/2008, Phila Rogers wrote:
>Dear Birders:
>Since witnessing a Shrub Jay slaughter a Lesser Goldfinch a few days
>ago, I've decided to take down my niger feeder.  When the jay first
>began scattering the feeding birds, I thought it was to dominate the
>feeders by scaring off other birds.  Now I know better. I'm uncertain
>about the details seeing only the jay as he was dispatching the
>goldfinch with a few powerful blows with its heavy beak.  It picked up
>the limp yellow bird and flew off while I, helpless to intercede
>pounded on the window.  I was furious and in an act of mindless
>vengeance I looked for its nest with rasping offspring prepared to
>knock it down.  I changed my mind.  
>I can only hope that when the jay young are successfully fledged, that
>the jays will go back to being simply aggressive.
>Phila Rogers