blue jays

I've gotten interested in blue jays this winter, for no particular reason.  I've always liked their color scheme, and they are such brash birds that it is hard not to notice them.  I don't have any good photos of my own, but I'll bet that anyone who has spent much time east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. or southern Canada knows what a blue jay is.  They are pretty smart birds, and are cousins of crows.  And they certainly are pretty, in a showy kind of way. 
You know those eggshells that don't compost very well?  Blue jays will eat them in the wintertime.  Just cook them, to kill any possible salmonella virus, and crush them up and sprinkle them on the snow.  I stick them in the microwave for a minute or two (depending on how many shells I have), and hard-boiled egg shells are all ready to go.
In the Thornton Burgess books, Peter Rabbit thinks Sammy Jay looks like a little piece of sky that flew down to earth.  Good reading, by the way, and more educational than one might think at first glance.