A few years ago, I bought a few bags of glow- in- the- dark stones.  My friend was making fairy gardens with her granddaughter and I thought they would enjoy the novelty of the stones.  I kept a bag for myself.  I don't remember being very impressed with the glow- in- the- dark capability.  But they were attractive, yellow-green, smooth polished stones about 1-1 ½ inches long.  I decided to use them as a top dressing on succulent dish garden.

Dish garden. photos by Karen Metz

And there they remained, getting moved only when I had to replace a succulent in the dish garden.  In mid-July, I noticed while watering that one of the stones was in a nearby pot, nestled between two aloes.  I hadn't moved the stone and it didn't seem likely that it had happened accidentally.  We hadn't had many visits from the neighborhood squirrels since we took down our sunflower seed bird feeders in the spring due to concerns about transmission of avian flu virus.

Aloe with stone.

Now what we had seen, recently, was a mother blue jay with her two offspring.  Blue jays had nested in our Podocarpus trees in the past, but not in recent years.  So, we had been very pleased to watch the antics of this trio.  The juvenile bids were almost the size of the mother, but were still quite adept at doing the crouch down, beak open, feather fluttering maneuver, accompanied by the feed me vocalization.

We saw less and less of the mother jay, but the siblings seemed to be having a fine time exploring our yard and playing with each other.  The birds did not seem very frightened of us and let me get quite close to take a photograph.  They investigated our patio and I assumed they were looking for something to eat, bugs or greenery.  Could it have been one of them?

A few days later, my husband and I saw one of the jays, with a stone in his beak sitting on the edge of a wine barrel planter.  We shouted at him and he tried to fly off with the stone, but after about six feet of flight, he dropped it.  My husband retrieved it and we put it back in the dish garden.

We only see the jays sporadically now, and usually high up in the trees.  Our succulent dish garden remains intact.  I was intrigued by the whole incident and did some online research.  There have been some reports of juvenile crows playing with stones.  Many sites mentioned that crows, blue jays and magpies were attracted to shiny objects and to sometimes collect them.  Anecdotal reports have come down through the centuries, but many experts feel these are myths.  Other sites point out that shiny metallic ribbons and reflectors are often used to scare birds off from farmer's harvests.

Was our young bird attracted to the smooth shiny surface?  Perhaps he wasn't clear yet on the whole food/nonfood concept and wanted to put the stone away somewhere safe until he could figure it out.  Or maybe he was just playing or exploring the limits of his own changing abilities as he grew and learned.  Whatever it was, I am very glad I got to witness it.  I do wish I could have captured a photo of it, though.