Mockingbirds listen and copy songs, scrub jays watch and copy behaviors.

I haven’t been feeding the jays who’ve been tentatively trying to take over the newly vacant territory–I like seeing more varieties of birds around so I’ve been actively discouraging the little marauders.

Well. Let’s just see about that, says they. Three times in three days now a jay has swooped in to herd (edit: actively chase) the finches into the windows the way the Cooper’s hawk does. Today for the first time one got up the courage to come right in close to the window near me to grab a finch that had hit and this time was still quite alive and struggling to get away, the jay stabbing it and flapping away in long hops across the yard, trying not to let go of the struggling finch, trying to do this hunter kill thing without the speed, the finesse nor the mercifulness of the hawk, which uses its feet to simply squeeze. It’s taking advantage of the newly fledged that haven’t yet learned that glass is glass. I know it’s not needing the protein to rear babies, it’s a juvenile itself. Go eat a bug.

I think I’m going to put post-it notes on the outside of the windows closest to the birdfeeders for a few days.