For the Birds: Steller’s Jay—Boldly It Goes ….

Adult Steller's Jay.  Photo by Craig Kerns.

By Christine Southwick

A bright flash of blue and a raucous demanding call announces that our local jay, the Steller’s Jay, has found your yard.

It fills the same niche that the closely-related Blue Jay fills east of the Rockies. These jays are the only two jays in the Americas that use mud in their nests. And these two species are the only jays in North America with crests. The Steller’s Jay’s crests are a bold black that flows down their fronts and onto their shoulders.

Steller's Jay.  Photo by Scott Ramos.

Non-migrating, the Steller’s Jay lives in a flock of usually ten or more individuals and forms a long-term year-round monogamous pair-bond in a highly structured hierarchy. The female broods the eggs, but both parents feed their young until about a month after fledging.

Steller’s Jays can mimic birds, squirrels, dogs, cats, cell phones, car alarms; even red-tailed hawks so that other birds will abandon the feeders. Some of their calls are sex-specific: females produce a rattling sound; males a high “Gleep, gleep.” Around their nests, or while raiding other nests, they can be very silent and stealthy.

Being omnivores they have a wide culinary palate. Two thirds of their diet is seeds, nuts, berries, and fruits. The other third is animal matter; they are considered a major predator of other species eggs and nestlings. They also readily eat bugs, suet, small rodents, reptiles and carrion. They cache extra nuts for scarce times, cover them well, and have an excellent memory and recovery rate.

Juvenile Steller's Jay.  Photo by Will Markey.

Males and females look alike. Adults have those spectacular vertical blue “eyebrows”; the juveniles do not. Additionally, the juvies have a brown cast to their crests—when they molt the next summer it will come in black.

Steller’s Jays were discovered on an Alaskan island in 1741 by naturalist George Steller while he was on a Russian exploring ship. The Steller’s Sea Lion and the Steller’s Sea Eagle are also named after his discoveries.

Stelller’s Jays love unshelled peanuts. If you want them in your yard, that will bring them in, if the squirrels don’t eat them all first. Once they know you have peanuts, they will start demanding their meals, often in unusual, but always loud ways.

I’ll admit that in the gray Puget Sound winter, that brilliant blue with the black crest, startling eyebrows, and audacious spirit is a welcome addition to the feeder area.

Christine Southwick is on the Board of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory and is their Winter Urban Color-banding Project Manager. She is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat Steward, having completed their forty hour class. We're happy that she's sharing her expertise with us about the birds in our backyards.