Wild Facts About The Blue Jay

Quick Facts About Blue Jays

Scientific Name	Cyanocitta cristata
Common Name(s)	Blue Jay
Animal Type	Land Bird
Diet	Omnivorous. Acorns, nestling birds and bird eggs, insects, small rodents, lizards like skinks and Green Anoles (Anolis carolinensis), and carrion. Visits backyard bird feeders that offer black oil sunflower seeds, peanuts, acorns, corn, or fruit placed on the ground. Blue Jays mimic the calls of hunting hawks, like the Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), to scare other birds away from feeders.
Found	Look for Blue Jays in oak forests throughout North Carolina and within parks and natural areas populated by oak trees. Live year-round in North Carolina but are most conspicuous and easiest to spot during winter.
Description	12 inches (30.5 cm). Bright blue crest and back; white to pale gray underparts. White face with black eyes, beak, and distinct necklace stripe. Bright blue wings and tail have black bars and are edged in white. Males and females look similar. Juveniles resemble adults only duller in color.

Blue Jay Images

Blue Jay. Cyanocitta cristata. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Blue Jays. Cyanocitta cristata. Bird. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Fun Facts About Blue Jays

The Good About Blue Jays

Blue Jays help oak forests grow and expand into new regions.
- While they eat some acorns on the spot, they also bury some for later (called “caching”).
- They fly their acorns away from the source trees before burying them, so disperse the oak seeds farther than they would otherwise go.
Blue Jays push the acorns into the ground when the soil is soft and cover them with leaf litter or dry grass when the soil is hard.
- They are “scatter hoarders”; they spread their burial sites out and bury their acorns one at a time instead of all in one spot.
  - In a study that researched Blue Jay nut-caching behavior and how it might effect oak tree distribution, some Blue Jay birds separated out consecutive caching sites by more than 100 m (Johnson et al. 1997, https://doi.org/10.2307/2426828)
    - This lessens the chance that other acorn eaters, like squirrels, turkeys, and deer, will find the birds’ caches.
    - Coincidentally, this gives each acorn a better chance to survive and grow into an oak tree.
Blue Jays may be the only acorn-eating species to help oak trees establish themselves in new areas. Other species that rely on oak tree acorns:
- Don’t cache acorns at all, such as White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus), American Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo).
- Cache acorns above ground where they have no chance to grow such as Acorn Woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) (not a species found in North Carolina).
- Only bury acorns near the source trees, such as Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) (Johnson et al. 1997, https://doi.org/10.2307/2426828).

The Not So Good About Blue Jays

Blue Jays attack and kill the nestlings of other, smaller birds, like Carolina Wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) (D’Orazio and Neudorf 2008, https://doi.org/10.1676/06-149.1).
They also scare other, smaller birds away from backyard feeders by imitating the screams of hunting hawks.

The Good About Blue Jays Continued

Blue Jays Help Keep Mother Nature Clean

Blue Jays help keep the environment clean by scavenging dead animals.
One study that researched the behavior of avian scavengers found that Blue Jays were the first to arrive within or equal to 75 meters of the dead White-Tailed Deer bait on average, beating out even famous scavengers like the Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus), and American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).
- Blue Jays arrived at the baits in 44.7 ± 6.3 minutes compared to the Turkey Vultures, who arrived in 54.8 ± 10.4 minutes on average (Keely and Yahner 2005, https://doi.org/10.1656/1092-6194(2005)012[0103:BROASI]2.0.CO;2).
- However, this does not mean that Blue Jays are somehow better at locating carrion quickly than these other scavenging birds. Rather, it’s more likely that there were simply more Blue Jays in the study area, which upped their chances to be first on the scene.

Blue Jays Are The Neighborhood Watch

Blue Jays are brave, aggressive birds that mob predators to drive them out of the jays’ area.
- Birds such as Red-Shouldered Hawks, Broad-Winged Hawks, Red-Tailed Hawks, Barred Owls (Strix varia), and other owl species regularly hunt Blue Jays and other smaller birds.
- When a Blue Jay spots one of these dangerous animals, it sounds a raucous series of alarm calls to alert all creatures in the area to the threat, then dive bombs the predator over and over again in a behavior called “mobbing”.
- Mobbing is an extremely dangerous activity for Blue Jays.
  - Blue Jays are relatively safe when the raptors are perched and the jays are dive-bombing them from above.
  - Often, mobbing successfully drives the predators off; the raptors simply fly off in irritation.
  - But hawks and owls are extremely agile in flight. They can flip in the air and swing their taloned feet up in the blink of an eye.
  - When raptors gain the upper talon, unlucky Blue Jays pay the ultimate price for their bravery.

Christine

Christine is the creator and author of NowIWonder.com, a website dedicated to the animals and plants that share our world, and the science that helps us understand them. Inspired by lifelong exploration and learning, Christine loves to share her knowledge with others who want to connect with wild faces and wild spaces.

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