Artwork by John Sill
Blue Jay Small Journal
$20.00
The following description appears on the inside cover of your small journal.
DESCRIPTION
The blue jay is a rowdy character—dominating bird feeders, raiding the nests of songbirds, and mobbing predators like cats, hawks and owls. But this noisy, bold, medium-sized bird also adds a flash of bright blue color to a cold winter day.
Being in the Corvid family with crows, ravens and magpies, jays are known for their intelligence and vast vocal repertoire. Their common call is a sharp piercing jaay-jaay, which often attracts other jays. Most people are also familiar with the musical bell-like toolool-toolool and the wheedlee-wheedlee, which sounds like a squeaky gate. Even the most skilled listener has probably been fooled and looked skyward for a calling red-tailed hawk, only to find the ornery blue jay sitting on a branch, mimicking predators to scare away competing birds.
Blue jays thrive in woodlands, parks and suburbs and are year-round residents across the central and eastern U.S. and southern Canada. During the fall, they gather in large flocks that roam around looking for food. In the spring they loudly defend breeding territories but then become remarkably quiet while they set up an inconspicuous nest of twigs, bark, leaves and human objects like plastic and string. The male feeds the female during courtship and helps incubate 4-5 eggs.
The blue jay’s Latin name Cyanocitta cristata, means “a blue chattering bird with a crest.” Look for their bright feathers lying on the forest floor or neighborhood sidewalk. These simple souvenirs are a gift to remind us to be sociable and active even when the winter winds blow.
artwork by John Sill
text by Kara Jean Hagedorn
