ABOUT THE BLUE JAY
Captain Mary Watkins give you the blue jay challenge.
The Blue Jay is a strikingly colorful songbird, commonly seen and heard at neighborhood feeders. Their raucous call - “JAY-JAY-JAY!”- is a familiar sound throughout the spring summer and autumn. A member of the Corvid (crow) family, they are intelligent and aggressive. They can be found just about anywhere east of the Rockies in woods, fields, farms and cities. See if you can pick out the false fun facts that follow!
- Blue Jays are the bullies of the songbird world. They chase smaller birds from feeders, steal food and invade nests. No other songbird is as aggressive as a Blue Jay!
- Blue Jays do not migrate.
- Blue Jays are monomorphic… the males and females look alike and do not change plumage through the seasons.
- Blue Jays serve as an alarm system when predators are near.
- Blue Jays do not always show their crest; during restful times they flatten the crest. As the level of aggression rises, so does the crest.
ANSWERS
- While they may appear to be in charge, Blue Jays are often bested by Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Crows and Grackles when it comes to bullying. They are easy prey in flight for Coopers Hawks and other raptors. So this statement is partially FALSE.
- FALSE. Many Blue Jays will winter over on their breeding grounds, while others make short-distance migrations of a few hundred miles. In the fall, watch for large groups in migration… and note that some are carrying an acorn along on the road trip!
- This is also TRUE…only the sharpest eye can differentiate male from female: the female is very slightly smaller. You may occasionally see a bald Blue Jay as they change feathers annually.
- The raucous call is a great warning system when hawks, cats and people get too close. A Blue Jay may land very close to a perched hawk and scream at it until it gets frustrated and leaves (most hawks have difficulty attacking a close-sitting bird, and the clever Blue Jay knows!) So, TRUE.
- TRUE. A flat crested Blue Jay is calm, probably well-fed and happy. A curious bird may raise the crest to “half mast”, while any danger will raise the crest high.
Blue Jay Photo: J. Morton Galetto.
