PLEASE UNDERSTAND: IT IS ILLEGAL AND ACTUALLY DETRIMENTAL TO SCRUB JAYS TO FEED THEM BY HAND.

“This has never happened to me.” The statement came in an email from one of our best friends in Florida accompanied by a link to an article (see below) with numerous photos of the photographer’s experience. The featured photo is at the top of this column, and no, the photo is not mine and that particular experience has never happened to me.

In fact, the only photo I have ever taken of a Great Gray Owl was with a Super 8 movie camera back in the late 1970s, long before I began using digital SLR cameras. It is now totally unsatisfactory for this column, but fortunately Jewel had a slide from a photo she took of a Great Gray Owl (photo 2) that we saw near Williamsport, Pennsylvania, back in 1992, also long before I was using a camera. While the scan from the slide to the computer does not look as good as the original slide, it is still infinitely better than my movie frame copy.

That does not mean I have never experienced a bird landing on my hand, although never on my camera. Many years ago, before Florida Fish and Wildlife authorities became so zealous of instructing all visitors not to feed peanuts to Florida Scrub Jays, it was great fun to find Jays and while holding out a handful of unsalted peanuts have the experience of having them land on your hand and grab a peanut (photo 3).

On one occasion we ran into a fellow we did not know who was feeding unshelled peanuts with both hands and had the double-header experience of having a Florida Scrub Jay on each hand at the same time (photo 4). One of the birds then flew with the peanut to the top of the man’s head before flying off with its trophy (photo 5). On another occasion this Florida Scrub Jay seemed to take issue with my taking its photo, or maybe he was upset that there were no more peanuts in the hand (photo 6).  

All of these Florida Scrub Jay photos were taken at the Indrio Savannas just north of Fort Pierce many years ago. At that location years ago we often saw folk feeding Florida Scrub Jays, which became quite accustomed to people feeding them and looking for peanuts. I’ll never forget another birder friend who thought it was not a good idea to be feeding them peanuts, so he went out and gathered a collection of native acorns to take to the Jays. When he offered the acorns, one of their natural foods, the Jays brushed them off his hand and seemed to say to him, “Where are the peanuts?”

At other Florida Scrub Jay spots, now becoming harder to find, Scrub Jays are more reluctant to come to the hand and just wait for the offered peanuts to be thrown on the ground by the disappointed person trying to lure them to the hand (photo 7).

One time, at the Indrio Savannas, we did have the experience of a Red-bellied Woodpecker closely watching the Jays come to the hand for peanuts and proceed to land on the closest tree about five feet from where we were standing. He seemed several times about to make the leap to the hand for some peanuts but just could not overcome that fear of the final jump even for peanuts.

I also remember taking our 7-year-old grandson (now 35) to the colony of Florida Scrub Jays on Savannas Road in Fort Pierce and having him flinch when the Jay landed on his hand. But it never phased the Jay which just stayed and gobbled peanuts to our grandson’s delight. Unfortunately, that small colony of Florida Scrub Jays disappeared during the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005.

There are any number of videos on the internet depicting people hand-feeding birds, from Hummingbirds to Chickadees, but I have never tried to lure birds to my hand other than the Scrub Jays. At our bird feeders in Pennsylvania (Our condo association doesn’t allow feeders in Florida, although some folk feed birds anyway, and I have seen others hand-feeding Sandhill Cranes illegally in our complex) the birds remain very close by, even within about three or four feet from the feeders while the feeders are being filled. I’ve sometimes wondered whether they could be tempted to the hand with a great deal of patience.

I apologize if you thought this column would be about Great Gray Owls from the lead-in paragraph, but the bird-human interaction is the theme today. It’s all about trust and feeling safe in the company of our fellow creatures, human or otherwise. How much better place the world would be if we all could trust every fellow creature with whom we make contact. That strikes me as something we can all strive for. Now if we could only get Vladimir Putin on board. 

Article about wildlife photographers experience with a Great Gray Owl landing on his camera, with numerous photos documenting the experience: https://petapixel.com/2022/05/11/huge-grey-owl-lands-on-wildlife-photographers-camera/.