Western Scrub Jay

The Western Scrub-Jay’s calls square measure an indicator sound of the open West. Some twenty decision sorts square measure famous, and maybe the most effective description comes from naturalist W. L. Town in 1923: “No participant at Mardi Gras has sprung such a gravel device upon a quiveringly expectant public. Dzweep, dzweep: it curdles the blood, because it is supposed to try to to.”

Western Scrub-Jays have a mischievous streak, and they’re not higher than outright felony. They’ve been caught stealing acorns from fruit piciform bird caches and robbing seeds and pine cones from Clark’s Nutcrackers. They even appear conscious of their guilt: some scrub-jays steal acorns they’ve watched alternative jays hide. Once these birds visit hide their own acorns, they check 1st that no alternative jays square measure looking at.

You may see Western Scrub-Jays standing on the rear of a burro deer. They’re choosing off and uptake ticks and alternative parasites. The ruminant appear to understand the assistance, usually standing still and holding up their ears to allow the jays access.

Western Scrub-Jays evolved in 2 terribly completely different habitats: either coastal oak or natural elevation pinon pine woodlands. Populations that live around oaks developed stouter, additional hooked beaks that facilitate the birds hammer open acorns. Scrub-jays that live among pinon pines have agent, pointed beaks that square measure superior at having access to the pine kooky hidden between pine cone scales.

 The previousest familiar Western Scrub-Jay was fifteen years nine months old.

Scrub, open woodlands, and residential district yards of the western U.S & Mexico. On the Pacific coast, scrub-jays live close to oaks: in oak scrub, oak woodlands, and therefore the oak savannah of California’s Central depression. They additionally board the dense, shrub-choked scrub and coastal sage that lines coastal hillsides. Within the nice Basin, scrub-jays live chiefly in true pine pine and juniper woodlands.

Western Scrub-Jays eat largely insects and fruit throughout spring and summer, and switch to round the bend and seeds throughout fall and winter. They eat tiny animals like lizards and nestling birds, typically shadowing adult birds to search out their nests. For stuff, scrub-jays eat acorns, pine nuts, juniper berries, and grass seeds; flower seeds and peanuts at feeders; moreover as cultivated corn, almonds, walnuts, and cherries.

Scrub-jay nests area unit manufactured from a basket of twigs lined with rootlets, fine strands of plant fibers, and placental mammal hair. Nests take regarding ten days to create and area unit regarding VI inches (15 centimeters) across once finished. Each members of a combine facilitate with building.

Typically fairly low (6-14 feet high) in associate oak, pine tree pine, or alternative tree or woody plant. Nests area unit typically well hidden amid foliage, vines, and mistletoe.


Western Scrub-Jays area unit nice to look at as a result of they’re therefore animated. They move regarding in daring hops and lunges, trying around with sharp turns of the top. Typically found in flocks throughout winter, these birds area unit vocal and pixilated. Throughout the breeding season they stanchly defend territories from alternative scrub-jays by flying at them, calling, and sometimes pecking or grappling. Pairs rest throughout the year.

Size & form

A lanky bird with long, floppy tail Associate in Nursingd an usually hunched-over posture.

Color Pattern

Blue and gray higher than, with a pale side variable by a blue jewelry. In birds, the color blue depends on lighting, thus Western Scrub-Jays usually look merely dark.