Hey Kurt,

It really is an interesting behavior, and I have my own anecdotal evidence that Blue Jays can learn unconventional calls. As you said, most of us have seen Blue Jays drive other birds away by imitating a scary predator--usually a Red-shouldered or a Red-tailed Hawk. (It's interesting that they're so much better at the former.) There are probably a number of good uses for this trick, but the most common I've seen is to scare away competitors at a food source. We have a lot of Blue Jays in our neighborhood, and they often do Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawk calls as they approach our feeders. Being so close to Fort Smallwood, our local birds have probably encountered all of the area's expected raptors. However, at this time of year, the most common raptors around are Ospreys. Apparently one of our local birds found these very vocal, soaring giants pretty intimidating, and it started imitating Ospreys as it would land on our feeders. This went on for a
 while, and it must have been disappointed when it didn't elicit a strong reaction. (The birds definitely didn't flush as often as they would have in response to Buteo calls.)  This not only provided quality entertainment, but also strongly suggested that Blue Jays can learn to imitate other scary predators that they encounter. As to their versatility, our local rehabilitated bird does a pretty impressive cordless phone and wolf whistle!  I'd be interested in any other imitations people have seen.

Something new every day! :)

Bill

 Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com



----- Original Message ----
From: Kurt R. Schwarz <>
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Blue Jays Imitating Accipiters?