Blue Jay

Cyanocitta cristata · Jays & crows

Blue Jay

Staten Island, 5 July 2026

A Blue Jay on Staten Island in July, a bird of the eastern woods and every suburb in them, and one of the loudest things in a summer wood.

The blue is structural rather than pigmented; there is no blue pigment in a jay's feathers at all, and a crushed feather looks brown. Blue Jays are also accomplished mimics of Red-shouldered Hawk calls, a trick thought to help clear other birds off a feeder or a berry patch.

Blue Jay

Green-Wood Cemetery, 16 February 2026

A Blue Jay in the winter cemetery at Green-Wood, the oaks it lives by all around it. Jays are birds of the eastern woodlands and never far from oaks, and they stay all winter on the acorns they buried in autumn.

The blue is structural rather than pigment. There is no blue in the feather at all, just a layer of keratin that scatters blue light over a base of dark melanin, and a crushed jay feather is plain brown. A single bird buries thousands of acorns a season and forgets a good share of them, and much of the eastern forest is their forgetting.

Blue Jay

Prospect Park, 15 November 2025

A Blue Jay in Prospect Park in November, a bird of the eastern woodlands and every park and suburb in them, and one that stays all winter on the acorns it buried in autumn.

The blue in a Blue Jay's feathers isn't pigment at all. It is structural colour, produced by the way light scatters off the internal structure of the feather, which is why a crushed or backlit jay feather shows brown. Jays are also the reason the oaks came north so fast after the last ice age. A single jay buries thousands of acorns each autumn, often miles from the tree, and forgets enough of them to plant a wood.