Blue Jay

Here's a Blue Jay I met a couple months ago.

Though these guys abundance, vivid color, and noisiness make Blue Jays one of the easiest birds to spot, I don't really get a lot of pictures of them. As corvids, they're probably smart enough to be leery of humans, and tend to move around quite a bit making it harder to focus a camera. This picture came out pretty good though.

Blue Jays aren't versatile mimics - they're unlikely to imitate other passerines - but they are considered to do an excellent imitation of at least 2 birds: Red-tailed Hawks and Red-shouldered Hawks. It's possible they developed this as a warning call, though they might use it to scare other birds away from a good food source too. Certainly this call will get the attention of most birds (and birdwatchers) in the area.

I talk a lot about species that exhibit sexual dimorphism, where color or size easily distinguish the males from the females. Blue Jays are a good example of the opposite, monomorphism, where the males and females look indistinguishable (at least to us).

June 10, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 136369657, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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