Bird of the Week: Steller's Jay

Photo by Nigel Voaden

Species: Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri

Family: Corvidae

Sign: Leo

Favorite hobby: serenading anyone who will listen with a grating rendition of Wonderwall

Dear reader, 

Steller’s Jay are a regular inhabitant of Reed’s campus, and one of its noisiest, bested of course by the beloved Canada and Cackling Geese. This jay was immediately one of my favorite birds here upon my arrival in Portland. Firstly, for its unique appearance: unlike the jays I had seen before, Steller’s Jays are a gradient dark blue, moving from a lighter tone on their tail and breast to a dark gray and black at their neck, head, and crest. In fact, this gradient is subject to variation in the jay’s range, with some hosting a darker head or more brown-tinted head, and others being more blue. Scientists have identified 16 subspecies of Steller’s Jay in North and Central America with different color variations. Although subspecies are often arbitrary, this goes to show their diversity of appearance! As I got to know them better, Steller’s Jays became endeared to me for their constant attention to their surroundings, their ever-cocking head to the source of the most minute sound, their clearly intelligent gaze as they measure the likelihood that you provide them a handout. 

Steller’s Jay can typically be found in the canopies of trees, and are fans of the evergreens in their Western range. Like other jays, their diet is generalist, ranging from insects and seeds to other species’ eggs or nestlings. Similar to their Corvidae siblings, they utilize human urban environments and enjoy unattended picnics and garbage. Steller’s Jay are resourceful and opportunist, and often benefit from other bird’s assets. They have been known to raid nests, eating eggs and nestlings, and stealing the surplus food caches of other jays or nutcrackers. These jays are very social birds, and often travel in groups of their own species, or join multi-species flocks. Where their ranges coalesce, Blue Jays and Steller’s Jays, the only two crested jays in North America, occasionally interbreed and produce hybrids of the species. Jays have even been observed to engage in play with each other, chasing one another through high branches. 

Perhaps the most notable trait of the Steller’s Jay is their incessantly raucous call. They are chatting about something basically all the time, whether it’s communicating with each other, setting off the alarm for a circling hawk or pesky college student walking beneath their nest, or just making themselves known. While they have a more subtle courtship song, their calls largely consist of their characteristic shook shook shook, as well as a variety of guttural sounds. They will also occasionally use a low, harsh growling sound. Like some urban-dwelling birds, Steller’s Jays mimic sounds that they hear, including other birds, squirrels, cats, dogs, and even machines. To some extent, I can’t help but believe they must just like hearing the sound of their own voices. While this is hard to appreciate at 6:00am as they flit unhindered through the bamboo directly next to my window, I remain a defender of birds who love to yap just to yap. For all their machismo and annoying chatter, it’s hard not to love Steller’s Jays for their charmingly insistent interjection into the lives of all organisms in their vicinity.