The Stellar’s Jays are greedy. Can we think of greedy without ascribing judgment? Of course the Jays are greedy, they are tying to feed themselves. But they are so obvious in their greed and the loss it brings them.
When there are multiple peanuts they will take their time to make a “wise” selection, taking each peanut into their beak and weighing it, then dropping it to try the next one, until they have the optimal ones. Certainly, when there is competition around–other Jays or the squirrels or crows–the Jays will just dive and swoop on one peanut, and straight-away fly to a tree branch to feast.
This morning there are three or four Jays here having breakfast on the peanuts I toss out. One has swooped and grabbed and now is perched in the cherry tree with his peanut sitting on the branch; next he will start pecking at the shell until the nut is naked. When I toss the next peanut on the ground, the Jay can’t resist and leaves his perch to swoop on another peanut. And about the same moment that he scores on that nut, another Jay has swooped on the one he’d left on the branch.
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