Hey there, friends, and welcome to episode 242 of Just the Zoo of Us. In this week's episode, I got to talk with a naturalist and birder about some of the brightest and boldest members of the Corvid family, the tenacious and charming blue jays. We are going to discuss the audacity of jays and their amazing hawk impressions, what to put

in your bird feeder, and why you might want to add a little bit of spice, why blue Jays aren't

actually blue, and so much more.

You may have noticed that this is another back-to-back guest episode.

That is because this episode is going up for Black Birders Week.

Dara is going to tell us more about what that means and how you can be a part of it during

this episode. If you are missing the sound of Christian's voice this week, I have good news for

maximum fun members. A bonus episode is going up on Friday, and it is about a very special animal from a very special

video game series called the Death Claw. If you know, you know. That's going to be going up on

Friday, so please do stay tuned for that. Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the episode.

Just the Zoo of Us presents Blue Jays with Dara Miles Wilson.

Music Blue Jays with Dara Miles Wilson. Hello, everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here with Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast. I have a brand new friend for you all today. This is Dara Miles Wilson. Say hello. Hello. Hello, all listeners. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. I'm excited to talk about our amazing little bird that I feel like is probably like an iconic bird that most people are familiar with, may have even been a spark

bird for a lot of people. Before we get into our bird for today, I would love to talk about you a little

bit. Derek, could you let our friends listening know what got you into your work with birds?

Absolutely.

So I got into birds, I want to say by accident.

Birds weren't even my first wildlife love.

Technically wildcats were, but we're just going to go with frogs.

Frogs are like my real first love, amphibians.

My first job out of college, I was given an opportunity to work someplace where there were just

research scientists everywhere.

And my roommate happened to be an ornithologist, and he happened to see that I was pretty,

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