Blue Jays (Cianocitta Crystata) must certainly be among the smartest and most beautiful of birds. Their bright-blue feathers, black collar and a contrasting white belly--plus a proud-looking crest--certainly makes them stand out in the crowd.
But blue jays are aggressive. In my feeders, there are several blue jays that love guarding the sunflower feeder, gaping their beaks at anybody that tries to eat. Sometimes I have to scare them away to let the smaller birds eat, for only the bold chickadees dare get close to the huge jay. The jays are incredibly agile, they hang to the feeder and grab seeds by the beakfull. To open them apart, they grasp them in their feet and start pecking at them to open the shell, the way they do with acorns. Chickadees and titmice do pretty much the same thing, so the jays look like some huge chickadee mutant, being so gentle when grasping the seeds but pecking them in such a violent manner.
Jays play an important role in the ecosystem. They feed primarily on the acorns of trees, and unlike most birds they don't eat them right in the spot were they were obtained. Instead, blue jays actually take the acorns with them and eat them several yards away from the mother oak. In fall, jays bury many many acorns, but since I doubt they would remember where they were buried, many acorns go untouched and begin growing into new oaks. Entire oak forests are known to rely in the blue jay to perpetrate their expandment.
Jays are amongst the smartest of birds. They are members of the Corvidae family, that includes the most intelligent of all birds, crows and ravens. They are known to use tools to get to food, thus putting their level of intelligence right next to that of primates (I think we should reconsider the term "birdbrain", don't you think?).
Bully jays, they are nice and important, yet quite clever!
-Cristina
Photo: Blue Jay from USFWS
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