Clark's Crows and Oregon Jays on Mount Hood
[Illustration: CLARK'S CROW AND OREGON JAY
Photographed from nature by Florence A. Merriam]
Although the Nutcrackers and Jays were masters of the feast, they did not altogether monopolize it. Ground squirrels with golden brown heads and striped backs would look out at me from the rocks, and pretty little striped-nosed chipmunks would pick up choice morsels and climb nimbly back along the cliff with them. Juncos often dropped in, pecked indifferently at the crumbs, slipped off the tin cans they tried to perch on, and flew off. Two Lewis' Woodpeckers stopped one day and, flying down, clung awkwardly to the side of the cliff, as if vaguely wanting to join in the proceedings, but not knowing how, finally left. A single Steller's Jay hung around the outskirts in the same way, the first day I was there. He hopped about, looked this way and that, and pecked at the food perfunctorily, as if it was new to his palate and not quite to his mind, acting altogether as if he realized that something was going on he ought to be enjoying, though he really didn't see just where the fun came in. Unlike the Woodpeckers, however, he was determined to improve his opportunities, and cultivated his appetite so successfully that on the last day when I visited the dining-room he and a comrade were working away, apparently enjoying the viands as much as their neighbors.
But the Crows and Oregon Jays were the regular habitues of the place. When resting from his labors a solitary Crow would often perch on the tip of a bare spar on the crest of the cliff, apparently quite satisfied with his own society, but I never saw a Jay there, and one whom I did see separated from his band for a moment fairly made the welkin ring with shouts for his clan. Several Clark's Crows were often at the table with the Jays, but while I never saw a Crow disturb a Jay, a Crow would often fly with animation at a newcoming fellow Crow. This was a surprise to me, for on Mt. Shasta I had seen the Nutcrackers hunting in bands quite as the Jays did here. But on the wide lava slopes of Shasta there were, doubtless, grasshoppers enough for all the world, while here the feast was restricted to the foot of one cliff on the mountain--quite a different matter. When I spoke to Mrs. Langille about this difference in disposition, she acquiesced as if it were an old story to her, unhesitatingly denominating the Jays 'generous fellows,' and the Crows 'greedy' ones.