Blue Jay comes to get a peanut with the sound of whistling

One of the loudest and most colorful birds of eastern back yards and woodlots, the Blue Jay is unmistakable. Intelligent and adaptable, it may feed on almost anything, and it is quick to take advantage of bird feeders. Besides their raucous jay! jay! calls, Blue Jays make a variety of musical sounds, and they can do a remarkable imitation of the scream of a Red-shouldered Hawk. Not always conspicuous, they slip furtively through the trees when tending their own nest or going to rob the nest of another bird.

Blue Jays forage in trees and shrubs and on the ground. They are happy to come to feeders for seeds or suet. They will pound on hard nuts or seeds with their bill to break them open. Most of their diet is vegetable matter including acorns, beechnuts, and other nuts, many kinds of seeds, grain, berries, small fruits, sometimes cultivated fruits. It also eats many insects, especially caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers, and others; also eats spiders, snails, birds' eggs, sometimes small rodents, frogs, baby birds, carrion, other items.

They lay 4-5, sometimes 3-7 eggs that are greenish or buff coloured, sometimes pale blue, spotted with brown and gray. Incubation is by both parents (but female does more), about 16-18 days. Both parents bring food for nestlings. The young leave the nest approximately 17-21 days after hatching.

Courtship may involve aerial chases; male may feed female. Blue Jays become quiet and inconspicuous around the nest, but will attack with loud calls if the nest is threatened by a predator. Nest site is in tree (either coniferous or deciduous), placed in vertical crotch of trunk or at horizontal fork in limb well out from trunk; usually 8-30' above ground, sometimes 5-50' up. Nest (built by both sexes) is a bulky open cup made of twigs, grass, weeds, bark strips, moss, sometimes held together with mud. Nest is lined with rootlets and other fine materials, often decorated with paper, rags, string, or other debris.
This particular Blue Jay was trained to come get peanuts on the deck when I whistled. Occasionally it would also bring several friends along.