Date: 7/17/25 7:13 am From: Betsy Kane (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: "Hawks" with a taste for figs
I heard a Cooper's Hawk calling in my yard, as I often do.
It sounded very close this time, so I walked around to try to see it. I detected thebird right overhead, in the top of my fig tree. (The figs have just begun to ripen, and soon every fruit-eating bird will be all over it.)
The calling Cooper's Hawk sounded surprisingly close overhead, but I couldn't get a good look at it. The bird continued to call with the Cooper's Hawk signature call, frequently and clearly.
... A little too clearly.
Maneuvering myself around under the fig tree, I got a better look at the bird. It was a Blue Jay, with a blue jay friend.
It continued to sit and call from the top of my fig tree full of newly ripe figs. "Obviously," these birds were "hoping" to keep other birds out of "their" fig tree for a day or two by imitating a Cooper's Hawk. (Anthropomorphism intentionally applied)
As long as I'm drawing inappropriate human parallels in blue jay behavior, it's cartoonishly funny to see a blue jay carrying a whole fig in its beak by the stem, flying away with it resembling nothing so much as a cartoon bank robber making off with a bag of cash.
In years past I had a blue jay that would sit in a secluded spot in the side yard, quietly practicing Bald Eagle calls over and over, day after day. It would "whisper" the calls as if it were trying to get away with something.
I just hate it when people anthropomorphize other creatures, but with blue jays I admit it is practically irresistible.
