Attracting Birds
How to Attract Blue Jays
Blue Jays are the easiest large bird to attract and the one people most often regret attracting. Decide first, then use peanuts, because once they know your yard they tell every other jay in the neighborhood.
The short answer
- Whole peanuts in the shell on an open platform is the fastest method. Expect jays within a few days to two weeks.
- Jays need somewhere to land. A tube feeder with short perches is close to jay-proof; a wide tray is a jay magnet.
- The reputation for raiding nests is overstated. Diet studies consistently find eggs and nestlings are a small fraction of what jays eat.
- Feed jays at a separate station 30 feet (9 m) or more from the small-bird feeders and both groups do better.
- Jays cache heavily and visit in bursts. A quiet October usually means the acorn crop is good, not that they left.
Put a handful of whole peanuts in the shell on an open tray and you will usually have Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) inside two weeks, often inside three days. They are among the easiest birds in North America to attract deliberately, which is why this page starts with the question of whether you want to.
Jays are loud, they arrive as a group, they can clear a tray of sunflower in a morning, and they scatter the small birds while they are there. They are also intelligent, striking, and genuinely useful as an alarm system. Both descriptions are accurate.
What follows is the case on both sides, the food and feeder combinations ranked, a layout that keeps jays and chickadees feeding in the same yard, and the specific measures that reduce jay traffic if you decide you have had enough.
Decide first: the honest case#
For. A jay is a big, patterned, obviously smart bird that will use your yard year-round. Jays cache thousands of acorns each fall and fail to retrieve enough of them that they are a significant planter of oaks. They mob cats and hawks, and their alarm calls are the earliest warning system your other feeder birds have.
Against. They are loud at close range, they dominate open feeders while present, and they will empty a peanut supply at a rate that surprises people. In a small yard with one feeder, a jay family can genuinely reduce what the small birds get.
Overstated. Nest raiding. It happens, and people who have seen it never forget it, but studies of what jays actually eat have consistently found eggs and nestlings to be a small fraction of the diet. The bulk is acorns and other nuts, insects, and seed. If your goal is protecting nesting songbirds in your yard, free-roaming cats and window glass matter far more, which is the argument in cats and birds.
The version that satisfies both sides
Feed jays deliberately, at their own station, well away from the small-bird feeders. A jay with an easy peanut supply spends far less time harassing your tube feeder.
Peanuts first, then everything else#
| Food | Feeder | Speed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peanuts in the shell | Open platform, tray, deck rail | Days | The fastest and most reliable draw |
| Shelled peanut halves | Platform or wire tray | Days | Faster to eat, so it goes faster |
| Whole or cracked corn | Platform, ground | 1 to 2 weeks | Cheap; also brings grackles and doves |
| Striped sunflower | Platform, hopper | 1 to 2 weeks | Big seed suits a big bill |
| Black oil sunflower | Almost anything | 1 to 2 weeks | Taken readily, mostly carried off |
| Suet | Cage feeder | 2 to 4 weeks | Used mainly in winter |
| Safflower | Any | Slow, often ignored | Useful precisely because jays dislike it |
Peanuts for birds should be raw and unsalted. Salted or seasoned nuts are not appropriate for any bird, and roasted nuts add nothing. Offer whole in-shell peanuts a dozen at a time rather than filling a tray: a jay will take several in one visit, hold them in its throat pouch and carry them off to cache, so a big pile disappears without feeding a single extra bird.
Give them somewhere to stand#
Jay access is a question of landing surface, not of seed.
A platform or tray feeder with at least 12 by 12 inches (30 by 30 cm) of open surface is what they want, mounted on a post 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 m) up. A deck rail works. So does a flat rock or a stump, if you would rather not buy anything.
They also feed happily on the ground, will use a large hopper with a broad ledge, and can work a suet cage in a clumsy, wing-braced way. What they mostly cannot use is a narrow tube with perches under an inch (2.5 cm), which is the entire basis of the exclusion strategy further down.
The peanut string trick
Thread whole in-shell peanuts onto a length of stout thread with a large needle and hang the string from a branch. Jays work out how to handle it within a day or two, and the show is better than anything a tray gives you.
Two stations, thirty feet apart#
The single change that resolves most jay complaints is spatial. Put the jay station at the far end of the yard from the small-bird feeders, ideally 30 feet (9 m) or more away and out of sight of them if the layout allows.
The logic is simple: jays are efficient. Given a tray of peanuts they will not spend their morning fighting a tube feeder for sunflower seed. The small birds keep feeding while the jays are occupied, and you get to watch both. This is the same reasoning behind spacing feeders in how many feeders and how far apart.
Refill the jay tray on a schedule, once in the morning, with a fixed amount. Jays learn timing fast and will be waiting, which concentrates their visits into a predictable window instead of spreading them across the day.
Reading a jay: alarms, hawks and the acorn calendar#
Jays give a convincing imitation of a Red-shouldered Hawk, often as they arrive at a feeder. Whatever the intent, the small birds take it seriously and scatter. If your feeder empties of chickadees for thirty seconds and then refills, listen for the jay.
They are also worth watching for genuine hawk warnings. A jay screaming steadily from one spot, with other birds joining, usually means a perched raptor or an owl, and it is a more reliable signal than anything you will spot yourself. That behavior is covered from the other side in hawks hunting at your feeder.
Their seasonal rhythm follows the oaks. In a heavy acorn year jays largely vanish from feeders in September and October while they cache, then return in force once winter sets in. A jay may cache many hundreds of acorns in a season, carrying several at a time. Planting or keeping an oak, as discussed in native plants for birds, is a better long-term jay investment than any feeder.
If you decide you want fewer#
The measures below work in order of effectiveness. None of them are harmful to the birds.
- Remove the landing surfaces. Take the tray off the bottom of your tube feeder. Use feeders with perches under an inch (2.5 cm). A jay cannot feed from what it cannot stand on.
- Use a caged feeder. A wire surround with openings around 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) admits chickadees, finches and titmice while excluding jays, grackles and squirrels alike.
- Switch to safflower. Jays take it far less readily than sunflower. Cardinals, titmice and chickadees all eat it, so you lose little.
- Stop the peanuts and corn. Both are direct jay attractants. If you are running out of peanuts twice a week, that is your answer.
- Feed less in the open. Ground scatter and open trays serve jays first.
What not to do
Do not trap, harm or harass jays. Blue Jays are native birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, unlike House Sparrows and European Starlings. Exclusion is the only legal and reasonable approach.
A layout that works for both#
- Small-bird zone. A tube feeder with short perches and a suet cage, 10 to 12 feet (3 to 3.5 m) from cover, close to the house.
- Jay zone. A platform or flat surface at the far end of the yard, 30 feet (9 m) away, stocked each morning with a dozen in-shell peanuts and a scoop of striped sunflower.
- Ground. Nothing left out overnight. Jays and squirrels both clear the surface by dusk, and what they miss feeds rodents.
- Timing. Fill the jay tray at the same time each day. Predictability makes the visits brief and concentrated.
- Expectations. Jays travel in family groups of four to six after the breeding season. If you attract one, plan on several.
Frequently asked questions#
What food attracts Blue Jays fastest?
Peanuts in the shell. Jays find them within days, take several at a time and cache them, and once one jay learns your yard others follow. Whole corn, striped sunflower, black oil sunflower and suet all work as second choices.
How do I keep Blue Jays off my other feeders?
Remove the landing surfaces. Jays need a perch or ledge wide enough to stand on, so a tube feeder with perches under an inch, or a caged feeder with a mesh surround, largely excludes them. Switching seed to safflower helps a little, but the physical approach works better.
Are Blue Jays bad for other birds?
Less than their reputation suggests. Analyses of Blue Jay diets have repeatedly found that eggs and nestlings make up a small share of what they eat, with acorns, other nuts, insects and seed making up the bulk. Jays do bully feeders and they do occasionally take eggs, but they are not a meaningful cause of songbird decline in a typical yard.
Why do Blue Jays disappear in fall?
Usually because the oaks are producing. In a good acorn year jays spend weeks carrying and caching acorns and largely stop visiting feeders. Some jays also migrate, in flocks and in a pattern that varies year to year and is still not fully explained.
Do Blue Jays really imitate hawks?
Yes. They give a convincing imitation of a Red-shouldered Hawk call, and often use it around feeders. Whether it is meant to scatter competitors, warn other jays, or simply test for a hawk in the area is debated, but the effect on the small birds present is immediate.