This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds.

This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds. Their fondness for acorns is credited with helping spread oak trees after the last glacial period.

This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds.

Where they live: Blue Jays are found in all kinds of forests, especially near oak trees. They occur in all U.S. states east of Great Plains as well as southeastern Canada. Did you know? Blue Jays have been known to take and eat eggs and nestlings of other birds, but it is not known how common this is.

This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds.

A brilliant green, yellow, and blue jay of the tropics whose range barely stretches to southern Texas, the Green Jay is a noisy, colorful delight. The birds travel in conspicuous family flocks through brushlands and forests, seeking insects, small vertebrates, and fruit to eat.

A large, dark jay of evergreen forests in the mountainous West. Steller’s Jays are common in forest wildernesses but are also fixtures of campgrounds, parklands, and backyards, where they are quick to spy bird feeders as well as unattended picnic items.

The Pinyon Jay is a crestless, blue jay that travels in large noisy flocks throughout pinyon-juniper, chaparral, and scrub-oak woodlands in the western United States. This strong-flying jay gives a crowlike <em>kaw</em> to keep in touch with the group.

Large songbird with long tail and heavy bill. Adults are blue with a gray patch on the back and dingy gray underparts. The intensity of blue varies across their range; birds in Arizona tend to be paler blue.

The “blue jay” of dry lowlands along the Pacific seaboard, the California Scrub-Jay combines deep azure blue, clean white underparts, and soft gray-brown. It looks very similar to the Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay (they were considered the same species until 2016), but is brighter and more contrasting, with a bold blue breast band.