In 1971, my paternal grandparents lived in Stuart, Florida. They lived next to a series of canals adjacent to the municipal airstrip, and the wildlife there was completely magical to my 8 year old self. River otters played on the banks of the canal, cedar waxwings ate fermented berries until they lay drunk in the lawn, a raccoon named George made evening rounds, and scrub jays visited the feeders and the steps. These cheeky little birds would come in close and curious, and even land on you if you sat still enough, and take peanuts from your hands. In the photos below, my dad is introducing us to his father’s yard visitors. I am the one in pigtails while my younger sister is feeding the jays.
Scrub jays are much harder to see now
I think the last time I saw one of these birds was probably when I was around 11. The only bird endemic to Florida, they face threats from development and habitat loss, and it’s estimated that 90% of this species has been lost in the last 50 years. The Cornell lab’s All About Birds site says, “The 2025 State of the Birds report lists Florida Scrub-Jay as a Red Alert Tipping Point species, meaning that it has lost more than 50% of its population in the past 50 years, has a perilously low population, and has shown steep declining trends.” We are fairly frequent visitors to the Florida park system, and not once in the last several visits have I seen a scrub jay. (and trust me, I’ve looked!)
E-bird is an amazing tool to use to find neat birding areas, expecially when birding is not your entire family’s primary purpose for travel. If I have time to kill at a new location, I just look up ebird hotspots nearby. So I was delighted to find a city park in Rockledge, Florida that boasted a scrub jay viewing platform. I had a few friends along for the ride, and I told them that my most exciting find here would be a scrub jay, but I wasn’t holding out much hope.
We meandered the trails, and waited at the viewing platform, and played with Merlin bird calls, but we didn’t find a scrub jay. And then, on our way out, I spotted one on a snag overlooking the area! I was thrilled, and totally unprepared for what happened next!
Florida scrub jays nest in ecosystems that have traditionally been fire-dependent: they like short sand live oaks that top out at about 6 feet tall. This gives them some dense shrubs and some open sand habitat. The habitat we were in today was punctuated by very tall old snags that had been burned out long ago, with fetterbush and smilax (dune briar) and some wax myrtle and mangrove. If fire doesn’t control the tree growth, the scrub can become too thick and too tall for these birds to continue to nest here. They nest in family groups and young birds help raise the siblings in the next clutch. They are really picky about their habitat– they don’t even like to fly over different types of forest or paved areas, so they have begun to be concentrated in small spots. Without fire to knock the vegetation density down, it becomes too thick for the birds to stay.
They eat insects and berries, and huge numbers of acorns. These jays actually save acorns for eating later in the season by burying them in sand. (Some sources say each bird can cache up to 8000 acorns in a single season!) It was a treat to watch this one digging through the sand for an acorn.
It’s hard to describe what someone just called my “Disney Princess Moment.” While that bird sat on my head, I was completely captivated by wonder and joy and that sense of being present in a world we rarely get to experience. 50+ years later, and the magic is still happening. What a great way to begin the year: with a solid reminder to just get out there!!
