Ep 225. Acorns and a Ruckus of Blue Jays

Mary Stone recounts witnessing a bear in her pond overnight, perhaps feeding on acorns. The encounter led her to learn about the Acorn Float Test, which assesses the viability of acorns for propagation. 

Blue Jays flock to feast on acorns in the fall, making a ruckus. Like squirrels, they bury a stash, though many are never retrieved. Mary admits a previous grudge against Blue Jays, which shifted after observing their nature. She highlights the importance of Oak Trees and Blue Jays in the balance of our natural world.

Thanks for tuning in!

Related Podcast and Posts: 

Acorns and a Ruckus of Blue Jays - Blog Post

Ep 35. Leaf Therapy, Essential Oaks

Native Plants, especially Oaks, are Essential - Blog Post

Ep 132. Shagbark Hickories and Nutty Mast Years

Shagbark Hickories – Nutty Mast Years - Blog Post

Growing the Home Garden's YouTube channel: The Float Test: Separating the Good from the Bad Acorns 

 8888

I'd love to hear your garden and nature stories and your thoughts about topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com. 

You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook and Instagram #MaryElaineStone.

Episode web page —Garden Dilemmas Podcast Page

 Thank you for sharing the Garden of Life,

Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer

More about the Podcast and Column:

Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
Direct Link to Podcast Page

Transcript

Ep 225. Acorns and a Ruckus of Blue Jays 

Sat, Oct 11, 2025 9:18 pm • 10:20

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Blue Jays, acorn float test, garden dilemmas, nature inspirations, squirrels, oak trees, bird migration, Doug Tallamy, garden of life, mental health, screen porch, bird feeding habits, native plants, wildlife behavior, podcast listeners.

SPEAKERS

Mary Stone

Mary Stone  00:00

Mary, Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary Stone, and welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries. It's not only about gardens, it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from Mother Nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in, the spirit of learning from each other, we have lots to talk about.

Mary Stone  00:25

 Hello there. It's Mary Stone on a very chilly screen porch. I think we're going to have a freeze tonight, and it is the time of year when the shift occurs. So, I'll have to move some of these house plants indoors, I think, or at least gather them along the wall of the home, so that they stay warm enough. I gathered many tomatoes from my garden. There are still a lot of green ones, but we shall see what will happen in my late-season vegetable garden. Anyway, I want to thank those of you who reached back after our last chat about a sunflower maze of healing. It was especially heartwarming to hear from a mental health community asking for a copy of the blog post. I am grateful that sharing my journey and healing, and sharing how nature and gardens help us heal, helps others. We never know the difference we can make by sharing, even if it's just one life. So I encourage you to do the same. 

Mary Stone  01:21

So remember the part of the last episode about squirrels chewing branches of the oak trees for easy access to acorns, which backfired, because most ended up in the pond. Well, I have to tell you the story about the night before last. When I was woken up at 4 AM. I was sleeping on a screen porch. I heard a very large animal in the pond, and I just knew it must have been a bear. So I got up, and the moon was glowing so brightly that I could see Bubba Bear. He had just gotten out of the pond and meandered right next to the screen porch, and I marveled over his magnificence. But I wondered, you know, was he possibly going after those acorns, or maybe frogs, or whatever he was fishing out of the pond. Why do some acorns float and others sink? I had to ask myself. And so on with the research cap, and I came upon a vide,o the float test separating the good from the bad acorns, which was on the Growing the Home Gardens YouTube channel. And that's how you determine the viability of germination, which is fascinating. I'll put a link in the show notes to that video. 

Mary Stone  02:28

Dave first gathers the acorns, and he examines them for any insect holes, and then he puts them in a large bucket, like a spackle bucket. After 24 hours, those that float are not viable because insects ate all the good stuff, basically, and those that sink are viable for propagation. So, he gathers the acorns that are viable, and he places them on top of soil in a large trough or pot, adds two inches of dirt on top, which is the depth that squirrels bury acorns. And I imagine Blue Jays do too. And protects them with a screen over the wintertime. He used a fire pit screen, which was brilliant. I have one of those. And come spring, whatever propagates, he will pot up to grow new oak trees. So, I have a feeling Bubba Bear was in the pond gathering those floating acorns. Mother Nature doesn't waste a thing.

Mary Stone  03:19

 Speaking of, while I was recording last week's episode, there was a ruckus of birds, so much so that I had to come back and record another time, and I'm going to share some of those sound bites:  you can hear how loud that ruckus was on the screen porch the chilly fall day. I woke to a bit below 50 degrees after my porch camp, and I'm hearing a very loud chatter of birds. Do you hear them? I think I'm going to start this later. I can't do it with these birds. Okay, we'll come back later. 

Mary Stone  03:57

Thanks, Bubba Bear, for inspiring me to learn about the float test, and thanks to Dave for coaching us on how to help make more trees, as do blue jays, the theme of this week's story, which starts like this: Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. Last week, while recording the podcast version of our weekly chat from the screen porch, a loud ruckus of birds erupted, sounding like an argument. The ruckus was equivalent to the sound of crows that CAW so loudly coming from the oak tree by the vegetable garden. How fun it is to use the nifty Merlin bird ID app by Cornell Labs to learn that they were blue jays. Both Blue Jays and crows are highly intelligent, and they both belong to the same family, which also includes ravens and magpies. They are undoubtedly beautiful birds characterized by the sky-blue coloring and black and white accents. 

Mary Stone  04:52

For years, I held a grudge against Jays for being aggressive, a grudge that originated from being beaked by one while jogging in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, where I used to live. Three puncture wounds on the scalp caused quite a bit of bleeding. Being a country bumpkin, I took it in stride, and I giggled, thinking if someone had gotten a video with my arms flailing around my head to shoo it away, it certainly would have made it on America's Funniest Home Videos. So, I came home, washed my hair, doused the wounds with rubbing alcohol, and suited up for the account executive role I had at the local newspaper. Colleagues were concerned, maybe they carry a disease, jeez. And so, I called the doctor's office. The desk person came back after the doctor stopped laughing, and he said, "You'll be fine." It was so funny.

Mary Stone  05:43

It wasn't until a handful of years ago that observing a nesting of Blue Jays near my writing spot turned my aversion around. Blue Jays are masterful copycats of other bird species, one of them the loud warning call of a red-shouldered hawk. It's used to deceive other birds into thinking a predator is present. True. They have a reputation for bullying their way into nests. Cornell's site All About Birds.org. Redeems the reputation. They write,  in an extensive study of blue jay feeding habits, only 1% of Jays had evidence of eggs or birds in their stomachs. 22% of their diet is insects, and the remaining is fruits, grains, and nuts, acorns being their favorite. If you'd like to attract these lovely birds, plant an oak tree, they suggest.

Mary Stone  06:30

 It's one of the most important species of the plant kingdom, writes Douglas Tallamy in his book The Nature of Oaks. Blue Jays gather in flocks in the fall to collect food, and during winter migrations, giving them dominance to defend their sources from other foragers and protect them from predators. These fluid flocks are also called a scold- fitting, giving their loud squawks or a party. Much about their migration behavior is unexplained. For example, some blue jays migrate in large flocks, while others don't, and some migrate one year, but not the next. Nature can be mysterious. I had the privilege of meeting Doug Tallamy in 2021, shortly after the publication of his book* The Nature of Oaks. Not only did he inspire a growing love for our native majestic oaks, but he also inspired a love for Blue Jays. 

Mary Stone  07:23

A single oak can make 3 million acorns in a lifetime, and a single Jay in a single fall can bury 4500 acorns but only recover one in four. That's how oaks move around so fast, Doug said. They choose acorns from healthy oaks, rather than those affected by oak wilt or oak decline, thereby helping the propagation of healthy stands of oaks. It's fascinating how they can carry five acorns at a time in their throat, upper esophagus, and beak. Many folks think of Blue Jays as aggressive, more than those of us who have gotten beaked. Perhaps their bad reputation stems from their greedy approach to taking over a feeder. But they aren't the biggest bully in the bird feeder. Instead, red-headed and red-bellied woodpeckers, common grackles, and squirrels dominate Blue Jays and mourning doves, mockingbirds, and sometimes northern Robins do too. It's true. Blue Jays barge in with their red-shouldered hawk screech to trick other birds into scattering, but they often return quickly. There's a lesson learned about the Jay that beaked me long ago, undeserving of a grudge I held for so long. Blue Jays are protective and caring towards their families. Isn't that true of all of us? Garden Dilemmas, AskMaryStone.com

Mary Stone  08:48

So, bouncing back to Bubba Bear, I have to say, when I was preparing this chat with you, it was only then that it occurred to me that that's likely what he was feeding on during the 4 AM wake-up call. I thought he was feeding on the frogs, which kind of bothered me, but it is the cycle of life. So, to imagine that he was feeding on the acorns just makes me smile, which led to the discovery of why certain acorns float and others don't. And the float test is a wonderful way to test the viability of all large seeds, such as acorns.

Mary Stone  09:21

So many lessons nature teaches us in this garden of life. And I'm so grateful and grateful for all of you that reach back to me each week and join me each week, and I also appreciate how you share the podcast with your friends and family members, because the more that join us, the more that we'll learn and grow in this garden of life. Nature is precious. It is truly a gift, as is our time together each week. See you next time on the screen porch. Have a beautiful day. 

Mary Stone  09:49

You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at GardenDilemmas.com and on Instagram at the hashtag # MaryElaineStone. Garden Dilemmas, Delights and Discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.