Jays and Juncos
Hands On
Compatible with Lesson(s):
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Bird Adaptations
Owl Pellet dissection
Build Birdfeeders
OBJECTIVES
Students play a game of
psychological warfare
as they try to trick their
competition from
finding their “cache.”
LOCATION
Outdoors
TIME NEEDED
30 minutes
BACKGROUND
Juncos are small “snow birds” that forage the forest floor for
seeds, and may cache them in a hiding spot for later. Jays are large,
intelligent birds that often steal the cached seeds of Juncos and other
birds, thus robbing them of food the Juncos need to survive.
In this activity, your students will play the role of Jays and
Juncos, searching for seeds or hiding them from their competition!
ACTIVITY/ RULES
The goal of the game is for each student to collect and
keep as many seeds as possible throughout the round.
 Juncos need 10 seeds to survive the round
 Jays need 30 seeds to survive the round
You may play several rounds, changing some variables each round
to make the game more interesting (see below).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
MATERIALS
o Bag of popcorn seeds
o Plastic bags numbered
1-4
o Plastic cups numbered
1-15
o 2 different colors of
bandannas (to identify
Jays from Hawks)
o Outdoor space with lots
of places to hide the
cups, like a wooded area
o Hula Hoop or rope
circle for “Holding
Area”
o Timer
Begin by explaining the competition for resources (seeds)
exhibited by Jays and Juncos.
Have students line up and assign roles to each student. There
should be 3X as many Juncos as Jays (e.g., count off “Junco,
Junco, Junco, Jay!”)
Explain the rules of the game, and point out the Holding
Area.
Give each Jay a plastic baggie for collecting seeds and a
bandanna to identify themselves as Jays. During the game
they will wear the bandana around their head or neck, but at
the beginning, make sure they are each blindfolded.
Give each Junco a cup with 10 sees and tell them to go “cache
their seed” (hide it where they think the Jays won’t find it.)
After 1 minutes of hiding their cups, the Juncos should
spread out in the area, so as not to give away the position of
their cups.
4H Junior Wildlife Stewards (2008)
Round One (5 minutes)
Juncos start the round with 10 seeds in a cup, and begin by hiding their cup
anywhere in the playing are awhile the Jays are blindfolded. During the game, Juncos must
try to distract Jays from finding their cache. They can use any means necessary (distraction,
trickery, outright lies, etc), but may NOT physically touch the Jays. Jays do not eat the
Juncos, so they are to focus only on finding a cache of seeds and pouring it into their bag.
Juncos will need to keep all 10 seeds safe to survive. If their cache is found and stolen, that
Junco must wait in the holding area. A junco may not steal a cache from another Junco. Jays
are larger and therefore require 30 seeds to survive the round, but may steal more.
After the round, ask the students what the Juncos can do to protect their sees. What
can they not do, and why? (Juncos may not physically deter the Jays because they are
smaller.) Is this unfair? Is there anything else that would help the Juncos defend their
seeds?
Round Two (5 minutes)
Begin as before. But inform the class that 1 minute after releasing the Jays to search
for Junco caches, a Hawk will be introduced into the system. The Hawk also requires food
to survive the round, but unlike Jays and Juncos, Hawks do not eat seeds, they eat other
birds! Hawks can ONLY obtain food by tagging (eating) Jays! The Hawk will not bother to
eat a Junco because they are too fast and too small. When a Hawk tags a Jay, they do not
steal the Jay’s seeds, they simply eat the Jay. The Jay must then drop their bag of seeds
where they were caught and go to the Holding area. Any Juncos in the Holding area may run
out to collect a cropped bag of seeds and re-hide their cache (careful not to allow the Jay see
where they are hiding it). The Hawk will try to tag as many Jays as possible, until all Jays are
in the Holding are, or until the end of the round.
Ask the students what role the hawk plays in the system. Are there other ways they can think
of that one animal might benefit from another?
Additional rounds (optional)
If a Jay does not collect 30 seeds by the end of the round, he/she will be a Junco next
round. But for every 30 seeds a Jay has collected by the end of the round, introduce another
Jay in the next round. Watch as the populations of Jays and Juncos fluctuate round to
round.
4H Junior Wildlife Stewards (2008)