Re. Vineland, page 3

[David Morris]

Pynchon seems to be exercising poetic license using blue jays in
California.  As I'm sure you know, they represent cops in VL, which is
why Desmond shows up at the end with a mouthful of their feathers.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Blue_Jay.html

"Many people dislike the Blue Jay because it is known to eat the eggs
and nestlings of other birds."

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Robert Mahnke
<robert_mahnke at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I always trip over the squadron of blue jays stomping around on the roof.  I'm not the birding expert my father is, but I thought of jays as relatively solitary, not social animals. Apropos of this, Wikipedia says jays form monogomous pairs for life, and that they may band together to mob potential predators.  Wikipedia also suggests that the blue jay's range doesn't usually extend as far west as California, but for the occasional stray (a point lacking a citation, ominously, so take that for what it's worth).