Me: Blue jays have so many different calls and ways to communicate with each other. Why do people always use the words raucous and jeering to describe them?

Other person: Well, they are not exactly melodious.

Me: I know people who attract birds with sunflower seeds and then shoot jays out of the bird feeders with a rifle. That is just so mean.

Other person: Jays are mean to other birds.

Me: I have never seen that. In my yard, all of the birds get along very nicely.

Other person: They raid other birds’ nests and bite the heads off the babies.

Me: Oh.

Brief silence.

Me: Are you sure?

Other person: Yes.

I go and Google blue jays. OK. Whatever.

Blue jays are forest dwellers who nest in tall coniferous trees. When they wake up in the morning, they quickly become bored and head into town, jeering raucously, to see what everyone else is up to.

Blue jays are less shy and elusive than you would expect forest dwellers to be. They seem more like city dwellers. I think they originally hail from New York City, or maybe Bayonne. Long ago, they came up north on a hunting trip, got lost and figured, what they hay, let’s stay here. We’ll just run the dumb pine siskins out of these conifers — easy cruising distance to some bird feeders — and we’ve got it made.

The feathers of blue jays do not provide good camouflage. In fact, they’re pretty flashy. Blue jays are not looking to be unobtrusive.

If jays were humans, they’d be doing rude things like honking their horns and shooting you the bird and yelling at you out the car window. They are pretty much type A personalities. They’d be littering and taking up all the parking spaces. Their car alarms would always be going off, and they’d be saying So? Sue me.

My friend Herb attributes my affection for blue jays to one of several flaws he has perceived in my character, to wit, my appreciation of trouble makers. He is probably correct, but then again my friendship with Herb could no doubt be attributed to the same flaw.

In the last year or so of my mother’s life, when cancer had considerably slowed her down, watching the bird feeder on the balcony of her apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan, became a major pastime. Squirrels and blue jays commandeered the feeder. She wasn’t the type to shoot them with a rifle, and eventually she came to enjoy their antics.

On the first cold mornings of fall in Keene Valley, I begin feeding the jays peanuts — unsalted, in the shell. Every year the jays remember. They appear — jeering raucously, naturally — as soon as I start throwing peanuts. I can tell them apart by their techniques.

One fastidiously picks up and discards peanuts one by one, weighing and comparing. Another won’t fly off until it has two peanuts. It selects a smaller peanut first, ramming it as far down its craw as possible, then stabs another, larger peanut with its beak. I am not convinced that either of them gets any more food than the thoughtless jays who repeatedly zoom in, grab and take off again in helter skelter fashion, but I admire their perfectionism.

The jays fly in from tree to tree, swooping down one by one, although sometimes several will be on the ground at one time. One icy morning, every jay that landed went sliding across the patio. They didn’t seem to mind.

One or two of them will bluster at incoming competitors, flapping up in the air and bumping into them with their chests. One jay has the amusing habit of chasing other birds around with a peanut in its beak. The others fly away in apparent alarm, then return.

The biggest peanuts disappear first. The jays retire to trees to crack the shells and eat. They never leave even one peanut behind.

Once a blue jay dropped a peanut and a squirrel got ahold of it. He hopped to the garden, the jay hopping along right behind him, buried his prize and scampered away. The jay unearthed it and carried it off.

If Herb could be convinced to watch blue jays, rather than the humming birds he apparently finds so adorable — hummingbirds are mean too, by the way –he might learn something.

Have a good week!