I’m sure by now you know my outdoor passion to either see, or photograph, the variety of wildlife, plant life and our beautiful surroundings.

Since I’ve retired, the gardening, yard work and property maintenance can fit around my time outside. Heck, I enjoy watching the Nittany Lions or our Phillies, but if it is a nice day to be out, I’m not sitting inside watching the tube. I can be a little hypocritical though, because when inside I will always catch the Weather Channel forecast or few evening reruns. I’ve found that getting out there is my best entertainment though.

We have our variety of bird feeders positioned so that when we work or eat, we can look out the picture window at the activity. We buy whole peanuts and put a handful or two on the porch railing and enjoy the blue jays feeding.

First, there is a clear pecking order because when one of the blue jays flies in, the others “back off.” I guess he is the “Alpha Jay.” But what we observed the past few days was even better. The jays fly in, grab the peanut and fly to trees around the yard to break open their prize. At least I thought that was what was happening all the time.

While observing, one blue jay flew to the lawn, set the peanut on the grass, and then poked a small hole in the soil with its bill, 10 seconds later it grabbed the peanut, jammed it into the hole. That wasn’t the end of the process. That jay then hopped a few steps, grabbed a fallen redbud leaf and proceeded to cover the peanut. We kept watching until all the peanuts were taken from the railing. We soon realized that it wasn’t only one jay, because as we watched, two other jays on every other trip, did the same thing: poke, jam the peanut, and cover it with a leaf. One even used 2 or 3 leaves to hide the prize.

But the nature TV show didn’t end there. We have a few squirrels that raid our feeders. Well, this day we watched a squirrel hop down across the lawn, sniff around, and soon found one of the hidden peanuts. Over the next 10 minutes, the squirrel found 4 more buried peanuts. Who knows how long this has been going on. Some blue jays the next day are thinking, I thought I put a peanut here yesterday. What a neat show.

Two years ago I purchased a 12-foot high enclosed deer blind to be able to better see and photograph wildlife. From that perch (zippered window openings), I’ve watched black bears, red fox, turkeys, red and gray squirrels, deer, a variety of hawks, and countless birds. Even better is that I’m eye level with many of the birds.

My latest nature “TV show” had two main characters. There are a few Chinese chestnut trees near me. Squirrels love chestnuts. The other morning a red squirrel was first to feed. It made numerous trips back and forth with the nuts until a gray squirrel thought he would take in these morsels. Well, when the “red” spotted the “gray” in his territory, the chase was on. The “gray” ran up one trunk, jumped to the nearby tree with the red just behind. Down that trunk, across a fallen limb, and back to the first trunk following almost the same route. This went on for about 5 minutes until the “gray” decided the chestnuts weren’t worth all this effort. I didn’t even need to look for the TV remote either.

So, get out there, sit a while, and enjoy your own nature shows in our beautiful Times News area.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: What is the most threatened resident hawk species in Pennsylvania? A. goshawk. B. broad-winged hawk. C. kestrel. D. peregrine falcon

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: Although not the norm, white-tailed doe sometimes give birth to triplets. So the answer was false.

Contact Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com.