I was elk hunting with a buddy about 20 years ago. We had found a nice spot to glass over a meadow, and he had laid a pair of orange foam earplugs out on the ground next to his foot. A few minutes later; “Hey, that f’n bird just stole my ear plug.”
Elk camp. About 3 camp robbers/pinion jays flitting around. One guy goes to his pickup and comes back with a fishing rod, ties a slip loop in the line, lays it flat on the ground and puts a cracker in the center. We watch. One of the robbers flies down, grabs the cracker, he sets the loop around this birds leg and the fight is on. Just like landing a strong fish except it's happening 15 feet in the air in every direction. After about a minute the bird tires some and sets down. The guy puts on some gloves, carefully gets the loop off the bird and the bird takes his cracker to the limb and chows down. We laugh.
He lays the loop back out, re-crackers, and backs off. Same bird on the same limb watches the whole show. Sure enough, he flies down, grabs the cracker, gets looped and off he goes. This lasts about 10 seconds and the bird lands, guy gently removes the loop and the bird takes his cracker and back to the limb he goes.
He lays it out again. Same bird, same limb. He flies down, grabs the cracker, gets looped ... and lays right over on his side, on the ground, waiting to be let go with the cracker.
We quit going to the trouble of the fishing rod and just tossed the crackers in the air. We're trainable.
Thank you,
MrSmith