I think a blue jay left me a gift. I could be reading into it, but, so what. I’m going to say it’s a gift. I had been feeding these one or two jays and this morning, in the exact spot where I leave them a nut, one of them deposited this little shell. Perfectly intact. Then flew away.

Did Crows Actually Make These Gifts for the Human Who Feeds Them?, Audobon, May 2019

Crows, as members of the corvid family*, are highly intelligent creatures that make tools, recognize individual humans, and learn from one another. … They do occasionally leave behind objects like keys, lost earrings, bones, or rocks, for the people who feed them, a behavior that John Marzluff, conservation ecologist and Swift’s colleague at the University of Washington, calls “gifting.”

*Blue jays are members of the corvid family.

It’s not the first time I’ve found odd objects where I leave food for birds. I bet they’re watching me. Every time I go outside … they’re watching. Right? The world feels so crowded.