I could probably count the number of times I see a jay in summer on two hands, but for the last few weeks it has been difficult to travel anywhere without encountering one of these colourful crows.
With their brilliant colours temporarily concealed by the abundant lush green foliage of high summer and a natural tendency for shyness, you could be forgiven for thinking that jays leave us at this season. They are still here of course, but raucous calls coming from deep within the treetops may be the only clue to their presence.
It is a different story now though. The autumn leaf drop means there is no place now for these woodland residents to hide and jays are much more obvious through their transformation into 'hoarders' and 'stashers' of the treasures of the woodland floor.
Daily plundering sorties see every jay meticulously scouring the ground beneath our magnificent oaks for glistening acorns nestled in the golden-glowing leaf litter. The wettest summer on record has produced an acorn bonanza in our woodlands and jays have been quick to take advantage.
In spite of the abundant food on offer, jays don't spend the diminishing daylight hours scoffing their bounty and fattening up in preparation for winter. Jays, like most crows, are very intelligent and play the long game by burying their treasure in a variety of well-spaced underground stashes, providing a source of food on which they can depend when food becomes harder to find in the depths of winter.
Regular flights between foraging grounds and their stores in various woods is what makes jays so much more visible now. Of course, even the cleverest of birds, can't be expected to remember where it has buried all of its acorns and it is these forgotten seeds that give rise to the next generation of oaks.
I was pleased to learn about the Jay's penchant for acorns, and this explains a small mystery. I have for some years been feeding the larger birds that come to my garden, but this Autumn for the first time i have seen a jay most mornings, and I had thought, but was not certain, that he had taken some Acorns that i had left out for the squirrels. I did not realise that birds ate acorns too. My garden backs on to allotments - i am just now a little worried that lots of little oak trees will be sprouting up on them!!