Q. Blue Jays are stuffing themselves with seed!! They take seed after seed after seed, not even stopping to open the seeds! What are they doing with all that seed?
A. When jays take numerous seeds without stopping to open them, they are placing food in their crop, which is an expandable pouch in their esophagus that temporarily holds food. This allows them to transport large amounts of food to a place to be stored for future use.
In one study, a Blue Jay was observed packing over 100 sunflower seeds in its crop during just one visit to a feeder! Check out the bulge in this jay's throat - it's chock full of birdseed!
Not all birds have a crop like the jay's. Blue Jays are one of the birds that store, or cache, food for future use. According to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, "Birds that cache food use distinctive rocks, logs, and other habitat features as cues to the locations of their buried food. Memory of these cues allows the bird to return and dig up most of the caches."
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Brien, pretty amazing! You're very patient to take that count - thanks for reporting in!
Posted by: The Zen Birdfeeder | October 14, 2012 at 10:25 AM
Counted one jay putting 59 small sunflower seeds into crop today.
Posted by: Brien | October 09, 2012 at 02:50 PM
Barbara, glad you enjoyed this info about jays.
Posted by: The Zen Birdfeeder | April 15, 2012 at 09:51 AM
Love this photo - and also have to laugh at those noisy bossy jays - they do stuff themselves and I watch them using holes the woodpeckers have created in the weeping birch to hide seed, then fly back for more... funny birds, but fascinating tidbit of natural lore. Thanks Nancy
Posted by: Barbara | April 14, 2012 at 08:11 AM