10 Fun Facts About the Blue Jay

They’re the massive guys on the chicken feeder, arriving with a vivid blue flash and a shrill jay! jay! name. One in every of our bigger North American songbirds, Blue Jays are year-round residents in woodlands, parks, and residential areas anyplace east of the Rockies. Along with their dazzling plumage and beefy construct, a distinguished crest and heavy invoice make these birds instantly recognizable.

Not everyone seems to be all the time comfortable to see them, although. Blue Jays may be aggressive and can scare off smaller feeder favorites to assert the bounty for themselves, giving the birds a bad rap. However there’s far more to Blue Jays than their boisterous methods. The birds are extremely clever and filled with surprises, together with near-perfect impressions of a number of frequent hawks. Learn on to study which of them, together with extra enjoyable Blue Jay information beneath. 

1.) Their title is a lie—Blue Jays are usually not truly blue. As with most different blue birds, the principle pigment in jay feathers is melanin, which primarily creates brown, black, or grey coloring. The feathers seem blue due to microscopic structures and air pockets on the floor that scatter blue mild whereas absorbing all different colours. However when a Blue Jay’s feathers are lit from behind, it’s clear that they’re, in truth, mild brown.
 

2.) In contrast to in most chicken species, telling aside female and male Blue Jays is almost unimaginable. Each boast the identical vivid blue hues and just about equivalent markings, however on common males are typically barely bigger. Maybe probably the most telling clue is of their calls: Solely feminine jays emit a rattle call, accompanied by a bobbing movement, when disturbed.

3.) One of the best ways to understand how a Blue Jay is feeling? Their crests. The birds are extraordinarily animated, they usually use that telltale tuft of blue atop their heads to speak their present emotional standing. On the feeder, their crests will typically be raised because the birds aggressively declare feeding territory and scare off different species. However round nestlings and members of their very own flock, they chill out, utterly reducing their crests.

4.) Regardless of these pointy crests and flashy feathers, Blue Jays are literally a part of the very smart corvid household, which additionally contains crows, ravens, and magpies. Like their kinfolk, Blue Jays can acknowledge and keep in mind human faces. They will additionally distinguish people amongst their very own species, since every Blue Jay has a barely completely different black bridle strip throughout their face, nape, and throat.

5.) A expertise for remembering faces isn’t the one similarity Blue Jays have with crows: The birds have additionally been recognized to make use of instruments. Whereas it was lengthy thought that the species didn’t use instruments within the wild, in 2025, a Blue Jay was recorded for the primary time using bark to extract a spider on the department of a pine tree. And in captivity, Blue Jays have been recorded utilizing strips of newspaper to pull in food pellets from exterior their cages. 

6.) Subsequent time you assume you hear a Pink-tailed Hawk, first examine if it’s a Blue Jay. The birds are expert mimics recognized for his or her uncanny Pink-tailed impressions. In addition they imitate Pink-shouldered and Cooper’s Hawks. Scientists imagine the birds make these calls to trick and scare off different birds at feeders and meals sources, in addition to for an alarm when predators are literally close by. Captive Blue Jays have realized to imitate a cat’s meow, the chime of a washer and dryer, and even human speech.

7.) Their favourite meals on the feeder is peanuts, however Blue Jays in suburban environments generally get a hankering for one thing uncommon: paint. The birds have been recognized to chip off light-colored paint to retailer and eat later, most certainly for the limestone these paints include—a supply of calcium wanted to put eggs. If your home is experiencing Blue Jay paint elimination, strive placing out egg shells for a natural source of calcium.

8.) One other favourite meals for Blue Jays is acorns—a lot in order that the birds have developed an expandable esophagus specifically designed to hold as most of the nuts as potential. One jay can match as much as three massive acorns at a time of their throat and can often maintain yet another on the finish of their beak. To maximise their masses, the birds peck the acorn cap off first. 

9.) In fact, jays don’t eat all of these acorns without delay; they cache them for the winter when meals is scarce. A single Blue Jay can disguise as much as 5,000 acorns by burying them within the floor at completely different areas throughout the panorama. Nonetheless, they solely keep in mind the place 1 out of 4 of these had been buried, successfully planting 1000’s of oak timber every year. In actual fact, the birds are thought-about important in spreading oak, beech, and chestnut trees in North America after the final glacial interval.

10.) Whereas Blue Jays may be discovered all through their vary year-round, some populations, particularly alongside the Nice Lakes and Atlantic coasts, are partially migratory, transferring southward in fall and northward in spring. In contrast to most birds, jays’ migration patterns aren’t constant; some will migrate one yr however not the following. In addition they transfer in the course of the day and in massive flocks. Younger Blue Jays usually tend to migrate than adults, however scientists nonetheless aren’t positive why.