What is wrong with Blue Jays?

Question

One day I was going out in the backyard to let the kids play and I saw a blue jay lying on the ground dead- wings out flat on his face. I was so grossed out and was not about to touch it, so I brought the kids back in the house till dad got home to dispose of the bird. I went back outside to inspect to see if it was bloody from a cat or whatever and when I got about 1 foot away from it, the d**n thing flew up into a tree! It scared the daylights out of me. So a few weeks later, again, I was outside on the deck and a blue jay face down on the ground, same way and a squirrel runs by and the thing flies away again. What is wrong with these birds? My mom said that she always noticed that blue jays act strange.

Answer 1

Birds will sun themselves and look dead doing so.  I work at a zoo and we actually have signs in our aviary advising people of this becuase we are constantly getting calls about our birds being "dead".

As far as Blue Jays, yes they do it too... they are also really mean aggressive birds, not only towards other birds but people and animals too.

Answer 2

The bird may be sunning itself, or it could be "anting".  Some birds will sit in an area where there are ants crawling around and spread their wings so the ants crawl on them so that the ants will eat mites and other parasites off of them.