Blue Jay - What Does A Blue Jay Eat
Excellent information on the Blue Jay with photos
The blue jay or blue jay is a colorful chattering bird usually seen in streams and tributaries in North America. It is also known as the blue-crowned chatty. The Blue Jay belongs to the crow family. (70.8-100) grams in weight It is a carnivorous bird and plant, and its lifespan can reach about 7 years in the wild.
Description of the Blue Jay :
blue jay
Males and females of the blue jay have similar colors. The bird has black eyes, legs, and beaks. The blue jay has a white face with a blue crest, as well as a back, wings, and tail. It also has a U-collar of black feathers around the neck on the sides of the head, and the wing and tail feathers are striped in black, light blue, and white, as is the case with the peacock, and the blue jay's feathers are actually brown, but appear blue due to the interference of light depending on the feather structure. If the feathers are crushed, the blue color disappears, and the adult males are slightly larger than the females of the bird. The average jay is a medium-sized blue jay that reaches 9 inches in length and weighs between 70.8-100 grams.
Habitat and habitat of the blue jay :
blue jay
The Blue Jay lives from southern Canada to Florida and northern Texas and has been found from the east-west coast to the Rocky Mountains, and in the western part of its range, the Blue Jay is sometimes interbred with the Steller's Jay, and the Blue Jay prefers a forested habitat. However, it is very adaptable, and in deforested areas, the bird continues to thrive in residential areas
Blue jay and diet :
Blue Jay
The Blue Jay is a carnivorous bird and plant, while it eats small invertebrates, pet food, meat, and sometimes eats bird chicks and eggs, and the Blue Jay generally uses its strong beak to crack nuts and other nuts, it feeds on seeds, berries, and grains. About 75% of its diet is plant material, and sometimes the blue jay hides its food.
Blue jay behavior:
blue jay
Information on the Blue Jay
Like crows and other family members, the Blue Jay is very intelligent. A captive blue jay can use tools to obtain food security mechanisms and work to open its cage. The Blue Jay raises and lowers the feathery crown on top of its head as a form of non-verbal communication. It speaks using a wide range of sounds and can mimic the sounds of hawks and other birds, and the blue jay can mimic hawks to warn of predators or to deceive other species, and chase them away from food or the nest, and some blue jays migrate, but how and when they decide to move is not yet understood.
Blue Jay Breeding :
blue jay
The blue jay is a monogamous bird. Males and females build the nest and raise the young together. The birds usually mate between mid-April and July and produce a fistful of eggs per year. The blue jay builds a cup-shaped nest of twigs, feathers, plant material, and sometimes mud near human habitations may including pieces of cloth, thread, and paper. The female lays between 3 and 6 grey or brown eggs. The eggs may be orange, pale green, or blue. Both parents may incubate the eggs, but mainly the female incubates the eggs while the male prepares his food, and the eggs hatch after about 16 to 18 days, and both parents feed the young until they are dependent on themselves to fly, which occurs between 17 and 21 days after hatching, and the Blue Jay in captivity can live for over 26 years, and in the wild, it usually lives for about 7 years.
Are blue jays threatened with extinction?
The World Conservation Union classifies the Blue Jay as a species of minor concern, while deforestation in eastern North America has temporarily reduced the population of the species, the Blue Jay has adapted to urban habitats and its population has remained stable over the past 40 years.
The Blue Jay is found in North America, mainly in the eastern half of the United States of America, east of the Rocky Mountains and most of southern Canada, in addition to Mexico, where its distribution varies according to its four subspecies, which differ slightly in form as follows:
1 (c. cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) (east coast of the United States, from North Carolina to central Florida and northern Texas)
2 (vers simple Todd, 1928) (South Florida)
3 (c. cyanotephra Sutton, 1935) (southeastern Wyoming and Nebraska to eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Oklahoma and into Texas)
4 (c. broma Oberholser, 1921) (New England and Canada from New Brunswick to Manitoba).
This bird can live in a wide range of environments from deciduous and mixed forests to parks and cities, but it prefers areas rich in oak and beech trees and dense forest edges.
What do they eat?
The Blue Jay has a very diverse diet which consists mainly of plants and pods, which make up more than 73%, such as beech, oak, and other nuts of all kinds + fruits such as berries and pods (palm seed sepals), in addition to insects which may make up the rest of its diet, about 22%, including caterpillars, beetles, and grasshoppers, plus spiders, snails, and sometimes small rodents and frogs, as it is an opportunistic bird by nature.
The difference between males and females:
It is very difficult to distinguish the sexes on the basis of outward appearance, as the male and female are identical in such a way that it is not possible to determine which is the male from the female.
Mating season:
Blue Jay nest
A picture of the nest of the blue jaryab bird
Due to the wide distribution of the blue jay, the mating season can vary depending on where it lives. Until the end of May or the beginning of June, the blue jay builds its nests in trees, especially conifers, at an altitude of between 3 and 6 meters from the earth's surface. The female lays between 4-6 light blue eggs - green in color and completely mottled with brown or black. their incubation period lasts about 17 days to get the young out of the nest is after 20 days maximum, but it remains under the care of the parents and they become self-sufficient about 3 weeks after leaving the nest, but they stay with their parents for another two months. Usually, this type of bird lays one clutch per year.
blue jay eggs
How to train?
Like many types of corvids, the blue jay can be raised in spacious cages, and its husbandry is not much different from raising blackbirds or starlings, where insects, fruits, and nuts are served as a basic lunch, and there is a special type of lunch that is sold in pet shops, but in America, it is common to be invited into the yard is a familiar bird in the backyard where hanging feed is placed and they are hand-fed as they are very familiar with humans.
General information:
Of the 530 stomachs examined, traces of bird eggs and nests were found in only 6 stomachs, although a search was conducted specifically for each possible trace of bird remains, confirming that the Blue Jay does not feed primarily on eggs and other birds except in rare cases.
Because of its great ability to simulate sounds, it imitates the call of the goshawk to deceive other species, especially when lunch is available.
Thousands of these birds migrate in flocks along the Great Lakes and Atlantic coasts, but much of their migration remains a mystery. Because the main reason for the migration is unknown and not all birds migrate either, but mainly the young with a small number of adults.
Tags:
Arabic :
French: Gear bleu
French: Gear bleu
Zoological Name: Cyanocitta cristata
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