Article: Chipping away at houses, jays wake curiosity

Staffing the Massachusetts Audubon Society's natural history help line, Linda Cocca gets peppered with the same questions each spring. How can I keep sharp-shinned hawks from killing birds in my back yard? Why are no chickadees visiting my new feeder? How do I keep squirrels out of my chimney?

This season, however, the six-year help-line veteran is getting a question she has never heard before: Why are blue jays eating the paint off my house?

Cocca -- and several ornithologists -- don't know. They think that the hard winter may be to blame, but they can't be sure.

"It's something that's totally alien to those of us who have been in the business for a while," said Massachusetts Audubon ...

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