“Would you like some of these?” asks a young boy offering a bag of what I assume to be sweets.
“No, thank you. But thank you for asking,” I reply, fully aware that I’m already on a massive sugar high from an ill-advised creme egg brownie.
A few strides on, I realise it wasn’t treats for me that were being offered but for the grey squirrels who are so tame at Tehidy Country Park that they tap you on the shoulder and demand you hand over all your nuts.
Today, any scraps the squirrels leave behind are being gobbled up by rooks. One skips around a swan standing beside one of the park’s ponds and cranes its neck to snaffle what it can while the bigger bird looks on disdainfully as if to say: “What the **** do you think you’re doing? You know I could break your arm if you had one.”1
Other birds are even more wary, but still can’t resist the treats strewn along the paths.
It’s said you’re more likely to hear a jay than see one. But not today. The three or four who are waiting until the coast is clear before darting down from their perches make no sound at all.
And that, to be honest, is a bit of a relief. For a secretive bird, a jay is pretty brash: all handlebar moustache, flashes of black, white and electric blue that give it a look of a magpie with a bad spray tan, and a hoarse ‘Squetchhh! SQUUUUUETCHHHHHH!’ call like a stick caught in a lawnmower.
The jay’s Latin name, Garrulus glandarius, roughly translates as a Chatty Cathy who bloody loves an acorn. And while chatty might euphemistically describe the racket they make2, they really do bloody love an acorn.
On this early spring day at Tehidy, they’re just popping to the corner shop for a few bits and pieces. It’s in the autumn when they do their big shop: gathering as many as 5,000 acorns each and stashing them away for winter fuel.
Inevitably, they miss some – which helps the spread of oak trees – but research suggests that, in common with other corvids, they have excellent memories.
And not just that. They can also plan for the future and consider the intentions of other creatures. So says Nicola Clayton, and she should know, having studied these cunning bird brains for four decades – not to mention human brains and the tango and sometimes all three together.
She has been involved in experiments that have shown how jays not only go to greater lengths to hide their own cache if they know they are being watched but will watch other birds hiding food and remember what they see and hear in order to later locate and pilfer their stash.
All the while twirling those dastardly moustaches.
Basking sharks seen on this walk: 0
Total basking sharks seen to date: 0
I know this is a myth and a swan can’t really break your arm. But, first, I’m not about to tell a swan that. And, second, it could probably break a rook’s arm if it had one.
As well as their screech, jays are also apparently capable of a sweet, soft song. Like Rod Stewart.