Jay Stalking: Failing the Background Check

I was excited yesterday, because I saw a second male jay in the yard (word must be getting around about the treasure trove of peanuts to be found here! :). I even heard the two squawking at each other. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to get outside in time to try to get some pics of them together, but hopefully they'll both be back again. I only saw the one today, though, so we'll see...

In the meantime, here are some shots I captured over the last couple of days. This first one isn't in flight, but I think it could make a great textbook shot of the Western Scrub Jay. (You can click on the image to see a larger version.

And I got this rather cool shot of him with his beak open (sans peanut for a change!):

Now for some of the flying shots. This first one's not too bad, although you don't get to see his face at all:

And this is certainly a different position than most of the shots I've gotten:

But most of my problems over the last couple of days have been uncooperative backgrounds:

And I figure, as long as I'm hanging out in the back waiting for Mr. Jay to appear, I might as well work on improving my technique at capturing hummingbirds in flight as well. This is the best so far: