Lori Schubrin

For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Check out these interesting tidbits about blue jays as we get closer to winter!

• Jays will cache seeds and nuts to retrieve later, and make repeated trips to feeders to gather food and hide it in a safe spot.

• Blue jays will bury seeds up to 2 ½ miles from their original source.

• Blue jays seem to prefer to cache their seeds in open areas that have recently been disturbed by activities such as mowing or plowing.

• Blue jays mainly select undamaged nuts to bury; research has shown that only 10 percent of the nuts they cache are not viable seeds.

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• Due to the birds' habit of burying acorns over a wide area, 11 species of oak trees have become dependent on blue jays for the dispersal of their acorns.

• The rapid northward dispersal of oaks after the Ice Age may have resulted from the northern transport of acorns by jays.

• In one research study, 50 blue jays were observed selecting and caching 150,000 acorns over a period of 28 days. Each bird cached a total of 3,000 acorns by selecting and hiding an average of 107 acorns per day.

• In one research study, blue jays were observed storing over 2,000 beech tree nuts in one month.

If you have any questions about backyard birds, email me at wbuwausau@gmail.com.

Lori Schubring is the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Shop in Rib Mountain.