Most people
are surprised when they first learn that the Blue Jay is a near relative of the
Crow. The difference in color is certainly marked, but in other ways the
resemblance is striking. Neither bird can utter its most characteristic note
without gesticulation. Watch a Crow from a car window when the caw is
inaudible, and the bowing and opening of the wings are all the more noticeable.
The motions which the Jay makes when screaming are not so well known, as the
sound generally comes from a screen of leaves. Both birds are thieves and seem
to relish their thieving life; both can live on almost any food; both are
heartily hated by their neighbors in bird world. The Jay is more bitterly
detested by the other birds than the Crow. He is himself suspicious, and at the
approach of a hawk, owl, or man, warns the woods by his cries. Besides the
ordinary djay, djay, the loud scream so familiar in the autumn woods, the Jay
has other cries; a note like a wheelbarrow turning on an ungreased axle, a high
scream exactly like the Red-shouldered Hawk's, and such a variety of lesser
notes that one never is surprised to find that any unusual sound heard in the
woods is produced by the Blue Jay.
Though one
of the noisiest of birds when pursuing an intruder, the Jay has learned to slip
through the trees without a sound, and conceals its bright blue and white in a
remarkable way. A pair of Jays may be nesting in some evergreen in our very
garden, and unless we happen to see the female slip into the tree, we may remain
entirely unaware of their presence. The nest is roughly constructed of twigs
and roots, and is placed in a tree from six to twenty feet from the ground. On
a lining of finer roots are laid four or five brownish or greenish eggs,
spotted with yellowish brown. The young are hatched by the middle or end of June.
The Jay in
spring is undoubtedly a reprobate. He cannot resist the temptation to sneak
through the trees and bushes, and when he finds a nest of eggs temporarily left
by its owner, to thrust his sharp bill through the shells; even young birds are
devoured. In the autumn, however, the Jay is a hearty, open fellow, noisy and
intent on acorns and chestnuts. The woods ring with his loud screams, as he
travels through them with his companions. It is amusing at this season to
observe them obtaining chestnuts, a favorite food. They drive their powerful
bills into a nut and wrench it out of the burr, then fly off with it to a
convenient limb and hammer it open. Many Jays spend the entire winter in the northern
woods, subsisting on nuts, but the large numbers observed in the fall are
evidence that many others are moving southward, where food is more plenty.
Jays and
squirrels are curiously associated; both live in the autumn and winter,
innocently enough, on nuts and acorns; both, in spring, poach on the eggs and
young of birds. One becomes fond of each of these rascals in spite of his
undoubted villains, and is glad that though neither Squirrel nor Jay is
protected by law, and in some states both are constantly persecuted, neither
seems to be diminishing in numbers.
In Europe,
the Crow and the Jay have several relatives, many of whom, such as the Magpie,
Rook, and Jackdaw, share the family characteristics. They are all thieves,
clowns, and impudent fellows, and yet win, if not affection, yet a certain
degree of good-humored toleration.
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