I have never heard of jays and sparrows being called "bad neighbour birds."
You should spend some time getting dive-bombed by jays every time you go out to hang your laundry because you startled one once by opening a window, thereby marking yourself for death, or having them screaming right outside your window all day long as they fight with other birds. And by "fight" I mean talk smack.
As for sparrows, each flock of them is like an old-fashioned, urban tenement neighborhood. They're noisy, rowdy, they get into epic, murderous fights with each other, they'll jump right down on your plate to steal your food if you make the mistake of eating soba noodles outdoors. I love those feathery little thugs.
I love watching jays belligerently go after anything and anyone they don't like the look of in their territory, especially as they protect their nests and fledglings. Watching two of them take on a hawk is something to behold.
And I love living with sparrows and being immersed in their tiny soap operas which they live out at the top of their tiny lungs.
Gulls are just so enterprising and attitudinal. I got a kick out of one that made a career out of rifling through backpacks on the beach. Literally, if you walked just a few yards from your stuff and weren't looking at it, this bird would nonchalantly land nearby, look around, check who's watching, then walk over to your bag, look around again, and dive right in. He'd find your lunch and take off, leaving everything else you owned scattered over the sand. It was wonderful to watch. I did have to play the cop for a family who were gone some time and were surprised to find their stuff covered with their beach blanket, which I did to keep the bird off.
And crows - crows are flying street gangs. Ask any hawk.
Ah, nature.
ETA: I have a passion for watching how wildlife merges with human environments. On the one hand, it's a sign of lost habitat, but on the other, it's a sign of habitat being taken back. If wild animals can thrive in a human dominated landscape, that means our pollution and toxicity levels are lowering and our environments are providing food and shelter for them. This makes me happy, and it motivates me to support measures to make the human environment even more animal-friendly. I know raptors can be dangerous to pets and people, but we need them, so I like that cities encourage them. I know that bats bite and carry diseases, but I know we need them for insect control, so I like when they are encouraged, too, and the population educated about making room for them and how to keep them out of our attics, etc. I'd like to see airports make better efforts to accommodate migrating species, and municipalities join the effort to save the monarch butterfly (if it's still possible) by encouraging butterfly food plantings along their migration corridor. It really wouldn't be that much of an effort -- just a lot of pretty purple flowers. Gods, I remember one year, the last strong migration I saw, seeing mobs of them descending on the Home Depot Garden Center because the purple mums had come in at the same time they hit Boston.
Wind turbines do pose a hazard to birds, more migratory birds than gulls, I'd say. But I know from watching them that birds really aren't that stupid. They're as smart as they need to be to live their lives. I believe that if turbines are introduced properly and managed properly, the bird populations will figure them out. I believe birds are far more threatened by toxic waste and the destruction of rookeries and food sources than by physical obstacles.
