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Jay (Garrulus glandarius)

Clickhere for the bird's sound.

The Jay is the most colourful representative of its otherwise dull family in Europe.

In Europe the Jay or Crow family of birds is rather dull coloured: black seems to be predominant (Crow, Jackdaw,Rook, Raven), with two noticable exceptions: the metallic looking Magpie and the very colourful Jay. The Magpie does prefer the real countryside, the Jay is an inhabitant of bushy areas, preferably larger forests. Just like all members of the Crow family it will eat almost everything. In springtime however it will feed on other bird's eggs and chicks, in autumn it's a great acorn eater. In winter the bird does occasionally show up on our feeding table, where it will really gobble up whatever is there. In the past the bird was hunted intensively. Even today some people blame the bird for eating other bird's chicks and will therefore hunt it whenever they can. As a result the bird is extremely shy and will avoid people at all time. So when it is on your feeding table you have to sit quit still, for even the slightest movement will scare the breathtakingly beautiful bird away.

The Jay is a very shy bird indeed. It will only visit gardens close to woodlands.

This bird belongs to the family of Jays or Crows (Corvidae). It is common in our garden and can be seen in Holland all year round, for it is a resident bird. The bird is 13" and weighs 170 grams. It lives in woodland mostly. It eats seeds, acorns, insects, eggs and young birds. The sexes do not differ from one another. Like all members of this family the Jay builds a nest in the branches of trees. It is an early bird, for before the month of June the Jay is all done. In its nest it puts three to four eggs only. They hatch after 17 days. The young birds will be fed in the nest for three weeks.