Bad hair day

During this time of year our neighbourhood Blue Jays are moulting.  They lose full grown feathers and new ones grow back. The process can take up to 6 weeks.

They also engage in "anting" whereby they pluck ants and use them to preen their feathers. In other words, they use ants like loofah's.

Here's one our Jays, sporting it's bad hair day.

They certainly are peculiar birds.
In the winter they peck at and eat the paint on our railings and garage door.
In the summer they use ants to scrub themselves.
This season they had two broods and there are so many of them, I suspect they are also Catholics.