Bad hair day.

The neighbourhood birds are done with breeding and raising their young. So now they are molting.
Blue Jays shed their feathers once a year and unlike Canada Geese during their molt, Jays can still fly.

This Jay looks scruffy.  A bad hair day for sure.

This Jay has shed most head feathers except for one or two really long ones on  the top.  Truly a bad hair day.

The Nuthatches are also going through a molt. This one looks like it's been up all night.

And Todd, our Chickadee  looks like he's been on a bender.

Chipping Sparrows go through 3 molts in their first year, followed by 2 molts thereafter. One in late winter and the other towards the end of summer.

Ester, the female Goldfinch hasn't begun to molt just yet.  She will turn a drab olive colour in a month or so after the fall molt and stay that way until the spring molt.

The best example of a bad hair day has to be this Blue Jay.  I sat outside most of the afternoon trying to get a photo. But the only time it sat still on the railing was when I was inside, hence the lack of clarity.

We have removed our bird feeders during the day now.  We used to put them out in the morning and take in at dusk.  We just learned our neighbour had a bear climb up to her second storey deck to get at the feeder.  It even came around to their place in the middle of the afternoon!