Blue Jay

Blue jays are relatively small birds that can be found everywhere, from deep in the woods to your own backyard. These beautiful birds are distinguished by the colour they are named after: blue! The feathers on their backs, wings and heads are blue like the sky and ocean. Other distinctive features are their white bellies and faces, and the black markings around their faces, necks and wingtips. They also have long feathers on the tops of their heads called crests that can spike up or be lowered down to show how they are feeling.

Believe it or not, the blue jay is a cousin to the big black crow! Like crows, blue jays can make all sorts of sounds and chirps to talk to one another. They can say a lot of different things, from warning other blue jays and even other animals about a predator nearby, to just chirping for fun. The classic cry of a blue jay is one that you’ve probably heard in your own backyard or on walks in the park.

Blue jay sounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV53PYId_Xg

Range and Migration

Blue jays live in places all the way from Florida to Newfoundland. They love pine forests and woodlands, including those we have all over Nova Scotia, another place they love to call home. Funnily enough, blue jays actually act more outgoing and social in our own backyards than when they live far away from humans. For example, they love to come and eat from a feeder in a backyard or let themselves be seen by us. Yet when they live deep in the forest, they are very shy and prefer to stay hidden within the trees.

During the winters the blue jays that live in the northern parts of their habitats will partially migrate a few hundred kilometres south to get away from the colder weather. They can travel in groups of between five and fifty birds. Blue jays are very good survivors in the winter season, better than other small birds that occupy similar habitats and do not migrate south. This is mainly because when the winter comes, blue jays like to gather in larger groups – instead of their breeding pairs – and will shift their diets from mainly insects to more nuts and seeds. These sources of food are harder to find in the winter, but with many blue jays living as a group, the areas they are able to scout for food becomes much larger. When a bird in the group finds a source of food, it will tell the rest of the group where it is so that they can all eat and survive the winter together. As blue jays are well adapted to survive in the winter, we see only a partial migration behavioural pattern instead of a full migration every year.

Diet and Predation

Blue jays like to eat all kinds of things. Normally they will eat different kinds of nuts and seeds found throughout the forest, like acorns and beechnuts. Their heavy beaks are good at breaking into the nuts. These birds also love to eat insects. In some parts of the world, they are really important for making sure there aren’t too many bugs around in a habitat. If times get really tough, blue jays have even been seen eating other baby birds and bird eggs, similar to their bigger cousins, the crows.

Mom and dad blue jays do their best to keep their babies safe because lots of animals like to eat hatchlings, including squirrels, snakes, racoons and other birds. The mom and dad birds also have to keep themselves safe from other predators that like to go after adult blue jays like hawks, owls, falcons and even their big cousins, the crows.

Habitats

Blue jays make their nests out of small sticks, twigs, mosses, leaves and other materials they can find around the forest. Both the mom and the dad birds will stay and work together to build the nest and raise the baby birds. Blue jay nests look like a thick cup made of twigs, mosses, grasses, roots and leaves all glued together with mud. The birds will make their nests from eight to thirty feet up in trees to keep their eggs safe. Blue jay parents typically have between three and seven eggs per mating season. These eggs are some version of greenish, blue or yellow with brown or grey spots on them.

-Matthew Freeman