Stake Out

We were out at Wattensaw Bayou again last Sunday. This time we decided to float down to where we last heard the Blue Jay do kent call imitations and stake out the area.

We passed two of our camera traps as we went, we were going to get them on our way out. When we arrived at the bend in the bayou where we heard the kent call imitations a Pileated Woodpecker flew across the water. We then came to an opening on the bank and pulled the kayak in. We brought our cameras and equipment and hiked far into the woods. We passed a small grove of Bamboo as we ascended the hill from the bank of the bayou. Then we were in the thick of the forest. It's a forest of Sweet Gum and Oak, perfect Ivory-bill habitat. We hiked what seemed like far into the woods, then made a u-turn and headed back. When we got back to the bayou we realized we had hiked just a tiny, tiny bit.

Once we got back to the bayou from the forest we sat on a "cliff" overlooking the water. The water has gone down so much that the bank is very elevated. We sat there for a while, just waiting to see what would happen. After sitting for a while, we heard a group of blue jays. We always have our sound recorder on so we recorded them. They called like normal for several minutes, then something changed in their calls. "kent, kent..kent,kent,kent" They were doing it again! It sounded like the 1935 recordings of two Ivory-bills at the nest. They were calling "kents" back and forth at each other, exactly like an Ivory-bill. Not only did they copy the note, but a behavior! It's as if these Blue Jays learned this *first hand* from watching Ivory-bills.

The Blue Jays eventually stopped calling, and they all flew off together over the bayou, one by one. We counted six. It was a pretty cool trip, and we have it on tape!