By TATIANA DIAZ
Staff writer
Blue Jays are found in all kinds of forests, but especially near oak trees. They’re more abundant near forest edges than in deep forests. They’re common in urban and suburban areas, especially where oaks or bird feeders are found. Blue Jays glean insects and take nuts and seeds in trees, shrubs, and on the ground, they also eat grains. They also take dead and injured small vertebrates. Blue Jays sometimes raid nests for eggs and nestlings, and sometimes pick up dead or dying adult birds. Stomach contents over the year are about 22 percent insect. Acorns, nuts, fruits, and grains made up almost the entire remainder. Of 530 stomachs examined, traces of bird eggs and nestlings were found in only 6 stomachs, although a search was specially made for every possible trace of bird remains. Blue Jays hold food items on their feet while pecking them open. They store food in caches to eat later. Blue Jays build their nests in the crotch or thick outer branches of a deciduous or coniferous tree, usually 10-25 feet above the ground. Males and females both gather materials and build the nest, but on average male does more gathering and females do more building. Twigs used in the outer part of the nest are usually taken from live trees, and birds often struggle to break them off. Birds may fly great distances to obtain rootlets from recently dug ditches, fresh graves in cemeteries, and newly fallen trees. Jays may abandon their nest after detecting a nearby predator. This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest, blue, white, gray, and black plumage, and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems and have tight family bonds. They often mate for life, remaining with their social mate throughout the year. Only the female incubates her mate and provides all her food during incubation. For the first 8–12 days after the nestlings hatch, the female broods them and the male provides food for his mate and the nestlings. The female shares food gathering after this time, but the male continues to provide more food than the female. Some individual nestlings begin to wander as far as 15 feet from the nest 1-3 days before the brood fledges. Even when these birds beg loudly, parents may not feed them until they return to the nest and this is the stage at which many people find an “abandoned baby jay”. If it can be restored to or near the nest, the parents will resume feeding it.
