My Stellar's Jay!

[JohnHuff]

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen! After waiting patiently this morning, we finally caught him in the act!

Looking all innocent!


Caught red handed!


Dashing away with the goods!

 

[gardengimp]

That is awesome. I have to warn you, based on observations of other master naturalist who are into the bird thing. Camera equipment can become quite the hobby. Long reach, super tripod and remote trigger are high on santa's toy list. I am trying my best to resist the lure of capturing the images of hummingbirds. Or Cooper's Hawks. Or Bald Eagles.

 

[CountryEscape]

OMG, I loved JW"s idea of gluing them down to get a photo! That would have been a good video to get. Bet they would have been ticked off! But, glad you got some good shots of the bird. We do not have that type of Jay in our area that I've ever seen. Just the common Blue Jay, which is huge and LOUD!
I used to rent and the oak tree out my front door was so full one year, I had to rake up the acorns, for fear of sliding on them like marbles. Had 2 wheelbarrow loads of them I hauled to the side of the yard next to the woods for the squirrels or birds to have a feast! There were none left come spring either.

 

[JohnHuff]

I thought about the glue thing but didn't know if I had anything non-toxic. We thought about using honey as glue but we managed to catch the birds before having resort to that!

We also thought about using a train whistle to associate them with acorns, but that might get annoying to the neighbors.

Camera equipment: I owned a couple of sets of film SLRs with telephotos and everything before losing interest in the hobby. Currently I only have simple digital cameras so you can see that the quality of the pics aren't that good. I have no idea how to take good shots anymore, I think it has to do with settings. If someone can give me some tips, that would be great too!