Do you have Steller’s jays in your backyard?

You’ll know it if you do. So will your neighbors, the people across the street and the hearing-impaired guy who lives around the corner.

That’s how voluble Steller’s jays are.

“They are really pugnacious and loud when they’re setting up territories,” said Jim Dawson, curator of living collections at Bend’s High Desert Museum.

Here are a few other words Dawson used to describe the birds: Obnoxious. Raucous. Scolding. Defensive.

In short, the birds are jerks.

Of course, Dawson also used the words “smart” and “clever,” but that’s beside the point. Because right now — the time of year when Steller’s jays are scouting out and setting up nesting sites — those birds are just LOUD.

They are songbirds, and are capable of making a variety of pleasant birdish noises — coos, whistles and chirps of the kind associated with sunny spring mornings and candy-colored flowers.

But the Steller’s jay “song” you may be most familiar with is no song at all. It’s a harsh, scolding scream repeated at full volume any time the jay perceives a threat near its territory, which seems to be pretty much all the time.

SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH.

A handful of Steller’s jays live in my neighborhood. Dawson hypothesizes that the birds nest in or near my backyard because that’s where they have set up their strategic defenses, where they perch in the branches of a juniper tree and scream repeatedly at any passing bird, cat or squirrel.

Apparently it’s an effective tactic. The jays are known to be so obnoxious that they will actually drive birds of prey — including goshawks and owls — out of the area. They use a technique called mobbing, which is exactly what it sounds like. The jays gang up on an offending bird, chasing, dive-bombing and screaming at it so much that it will eventually leave.

“They don’t seem to have much fear,” Dawson said. “They are a corvid, one of the most intelligent bird groups in the world, even above parrots. … They really know what they’re doing.”

I’ve seen the jays mobbing a crow in my neighborhood. Crows prey on the eggs of Steller’s jays, so are a key threat, Dawson said. It would be humorous to watch a gang of smaller jays bully a crow into fleeing, if it weren’t for the noise, which is distinctly unfunny.

SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH.

I have also seen the resident jays pick on my cat. They’ve chased him off the fence (where he likes to sit — he never tries to catch the birds), and have even harassed the cat while he was INSIDE the house. The jays, perching on nearby trees or below windows, follow my cat as he moves from window to window in the house, screaming and screaming at him.

Dawson said the jays are probably longtime residents. Steller’s jays form monogamous, long-term pairs and nest in the same area year after year (they are year-round residents). He said it’s good that I have resident Steller’s jays, because in many areas, the birds have been forced out due to competition from scrub jays.

And if scrub jays can compete with Steller’s jays in noise and general obnoxiousness, I guess I am glad I have Steller’s jays.

But I am not looking forward to the next few months. If the birds are setting up their nests now, they’ll just get louder and more territorial. Then they’ll enter a quiet phase when they lay their eggs, Dawson said. They’ll stay quiet until the babies leave the nest, when the parents will become even louder and more aggressive toward potential threats.

SCREECH, SCREECH, SCREECH.

Dawson did have one suggestion. Steller’s jays, he said, are great mimics.

“They could potentially mimic music,” he said. “Play The Decemberists on your porch — maybe you’ll get something good coming back at you.”