Jay

If you are a birdwatcher quite often the phone rings and one of your non-birding friends is bursting with excitement because they have an exotic bird in the garden. Occasional they are right, but more often than not it turns out to be this handsome chap. The (Eurasian) Jay, not to be confused with all those beautiful Jays in the Americas, is really quite common, but because they are normally woodland birds, is not seen that often. Their main source of food, in the winter is acorns, but if this crop fails they will often come to the garden searching for peanuts. They love hiding them for later and one year when Pam replanted a hanging basket she found about a Kg of peanuts buried in the soil.