Everyone is familiar with the Blue Jay’s striking blue color and raucous jay-jay-jay call. Listen for its musical weedle-eedle; and the next time you think you hear a Red-tailed or Red-shouldered Hawk, check to see if it’s not a Blue Jay imitating their calls. Blue Jays are members of the Corvid family, which include jays, crows, magpies and ravens. Blue Jays are admirable for their ability to learn by observation. Experiments demonstrated that a “student” bird learned, by watching a “teacher” bird, which butter-fly presented by researchers was edible. They have also been known to retrieve food from outside of their cages using “tools”. The aggressive “mobbing” behavior of the Blue Jay can alert an observer to the presence of predators.
Latest Sand Bluff Birder – February 2020
