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Blue Jays Acorns
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That blue jay is carrying up to 5 acorns at once.
Throat, mouth, and one on the tip of its bill.
It flies them about half a mile and pushes each one into the ground.
One jay can hide thousands of acorns in a single fall.
Jays get credit for spreading oak forests north after the Ice Age.
The acorns it forgets? Those are oak trees now.
Look for a jay with a full mouth.
This time of year, watch for blue jays flying off from oaks with acorns, then burying them one at a time, often at the edge of the woods.
Data: Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds, Darley-Hill and Johnson in Oecologia (1981), Mass Audubon and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority.