Amy Batog
birdnote q&a: the blue jay’s loudmouth lineage
21.07.2023 - 22:52 / awaytogarden.com / Ellen Blackstone
EVER WONDER WHY BLUE JAYS are so loud? This insight might explain it:“They’re related to crows,” I said on the phone one morning to a friend, who was noting both the large numbers of Cyanocitta cristata this winter—and how much loud-mouth behavior that’s amounting to at his feeders.
“Really?” he said, and then I thought what I often do when a “fact” pops out of my mouth so quickly to the blank look of my audience: I momentarily wondered if I’d made it up. Grabbing my Sibley’s guide, I was reassured to see I hadn’t: Family Corvidae—the jays, magpies (speaking of mouthy birds), crows and ravens.
“Yes,” I said, with renewed confidence. “Corvids.” As Sibley says, “relatively large, sturdy songbirds with thick bills, strong legs, and loud voices,” plus “noisy and aggressive,” and “rather social and usually travel in groups.” The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website mentions tight family bonds, intelligence, and complex social systems when it describes the blue jay—again, like crows.
Then I emailed Ellen Blackstone of the BirdNote public-radio program, who has been the tour guide for our ongoing series of bird stories here on the blog. (Browse all past installments.) Before I spouted off another “fact” I was unsure of—that blue jays were having an uptick in sightings that winter, something I swore I’d read somewhere—I wanted to be sure.
Yes, she said, and thankfully knew the link I was thinking of: The annual Winter Finch Report by Canadian Rob Pittaway that year had predicted more jays on the move from Canada. Pittaway includes blue jays in his report because they may move for the same reason purple finch, pine siskins, redpolls and the other winter finches do: not enough tree seeds and nuts up north in a given season to eat. (Upda
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