Jay Watch, 2011

The Saturday after we returned from our Alaska trip I had to go out for the annual Jay Watch out at Buck Lake. This marks my 5th year doing Jay Watch and it is always a fun, though hot, couple of days. Our task is to locate as many Florida Scrub Jays as possible and hopefully discover some new juvenile from any year's nesting season.

We use tape recorders to play Jay calls to bring the birds closer so we can register bands and count any birds in the surrounding areas around specified locations throughout the property. Unfortunately, we did not locate any juveniles this year. We did find a lot of the banded adults and even a nest that indicates that they at least tried, however.



After our first stop I found a flower I had not seen before. Neither had anyone else. Weeks later we found a match. A Florida Milkweed (Asclepias feayi) that was not known to be there in the past. A great find!



On the second day, I found a couple of jays at point 4. The first in was an adult that sat at the top of the oaks.



Another bird flew in and it turned out to be a female. Easy to tell once she began to do the typical 'hiccup' calls that only the females do.



It was nice to capture this behavior happening right before me.



On one of the last stops I relocated a bird that I got good shots of last year. Still here and healthy.



One more shot before we end the year's surveys.



Results will be tallied by the end of the year and then we will have another meeting to get those results of all of the volunteers from all over the state.