Blue Jay's Oscar-worthy performance for playing dead

This blue jay appears to be dead, as it lies motionless upside down. But after a gentle poke, he is awakened and flies away!

This is not an uncommon behavior with birds. One bird watcher wrote in their blog that they watched a pair of blue jay birds that did the exact same thing on numerous occasions, especially the male. It mostly happens when the sun in high and shining warm on the ground, because that way they absorb the heat from the sun. Think of it as a sort of spa treatment for them.

Blue Jays are being called bullies of smaller birds unfairly. Yes, they are loud, fast and don't think twice when they swoop down on the bird feeders and rarely stay still. They are hyperactive, which makes the smaller birds fly away and settle on the other feeders that are blue-jay-free.

The bird watcher says that when a blue jay is the loudest, that probably means that danger is near, probably a hawk. Hawks are the greatest enemies of small birds and those who feed them in their own back yards. So basically, the blue jays aren't the bullies, but rather the saviors of the smaller birds, with their loud screeching.