I wasn't sure if I wanted to go beyond the free trial of my dot mac account, but today it occurred to me that I can use it share video. And since both of my digital cameras have some video capability, it seems silly not to be doing this. The only downside is that, once I fill up my quota, I'll have to start deleting stuff in order to be able to put up more. So anyone coming to this entry months from now will find themselves unable to access the movies. (If you happen to be a visitor from the distant future, I'd like to apologize for the non-functioning links.)
Remember the scrub jay from last year? I'm living in a new dorm this year, so it didn't know where to find me. Over the past few days I've been putting an unshelled peanut on my windowsill every day hoping it would be spotted. The peanuts invariably disappeared after a few hours, but I wasn't sure if they were just being blown off by the. Today the jay (or possibly a jay) showed up while I was home. Within an hour I was able to get it to take food from my hand.
Once it knew I had peanuts in my room and could see them, all I had to do was open the window, step back and let it come in and take them. Each time it left, I put them further and further from the window and closer to me. In this first clip you can see just how close I was able to get it to come.
As the bowl of peanuts got ever closer to me, the jay started to get nervous. I'm sure it was thinking to itself how much easier it would be if that large dangerous human would just leave so that the bowl of magically appearing peanuts could be approached in safety. In this visit, the peanuts are a bit closer to me, and if your speakers are on, you can hear the threatening cries of the mighty scrub jay. Basically it translates into English as, "Okay, I'm coming in now, but you'd better not try anything, or the next nut I carry out of here won't be a peanut."
I decided to try hand feeding, which the jay seemed to find easier to deal with than entering my room. Whenever a peanut appeared, it could just fly up and grab it on the go. I never could figure out where it was taking them, but somewhere on campus is a nest overflowing with peanuts. Oh, here it goes again.
If you only have time to download one clip, this is it!