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The Trailhead is located in Lake County, Florida. map

For more information, please contact info@scrubjaytrail.org
(352) 429-5566

open:
sat - wed : 8:00-5:00

Email photo contributions
of wildlife or plants seen
on the trail to this address: photos@scrubjaytrail.org

 

 

Excerpt from March 24, 2007 Trailday Newsletter
"By" and "Who" News
Our resident scrub-jays at the Trail...
Our most exciting news is that "By" and "Who" ( "Who" , our latest gal scrub-jay) are starting to make their nest. We had a rare opportunity to stay around the nursery today and observe these two amusingly funny creatures. To hear a female "hiccup" is very rare. Rare only in the sense that we do not live in their environment to hear it. Two weeks ago she started "hiccuping" and vocalizing every day or so, but just a little. She would come to the building and start to "talk". Then she would take a very small piece of the coconut fiber from our window baskets and fly off.

Yesterday, Bruce saw "By" (our male, banded blue over yellow) take a pretty big piece of the coconut fiber and fly off. He also saw"Who"(We call her "Who" because she is not banded yet and we don't know "Who" she is) take fibers, only more dainty fibers than "By".

So this started 2 weeks ago and now is happening on a daily basis. Today "Who" came to the back railing and hiccuped her head off at us. She also has some very beautiful cooing in all sorts of tones. She is a very talented girl. Both "By" and "Who" are collecting nest material and heading to the grove adjacent to our restoration site.

Many of these dwindling orange trees on our property and the adjacent property are very thick and various trees have been used by the jays to nest in since we have been here for 11 years.

"By" and "Who" were also in the miniature donkey pasture collecting the fine hairs from the manes of "Shadow", "Sophia" and "Valentino". Who would have thought that they could contribute to the species?

At one point we also saw "BY' go up through the center of the Kiosk and pull down a wasp nest. He put it on the ledge and then "Who" couldn't resist as she dove in and fought for it. "By" won the battle, but only until he flew away. "Who" quickly grabbed the entire nest and flew off with it.

This was a good day to be here so we could observe all of this.           Back to Top of Page