Blue Jay Feathers « Flandrum Hill

bluejay Nothing brightens up the Canadian landscape like a Blue Jay. The brilliant hue of these clever birds from the Crow family makes them easy to spot regardless of the background or the season.

feathercloseup Four sub-species of Blue Jays exist in North America, each distinguished by different colouring or size. The lavender blue Northern Blue Jays found in central Canada are paler than the bright Coastal birds found here in Nova Scotia. The Inland jays found in the United States are a darker blue that contrasts sharply with their whiter underside. Florida Blue Jays are of the smallest size yet are similar in colour to the Northern variety.

Light refraction causes a Blue Jay’s feathers to appear blue. This process depends exclusively on the integrity of the feather’s structure. If a feather is crushed, it cannot refract light and consequently will lose its blueness. A dull grey feather is the result.

Below are some of the Blue Jay feathers I’ve collected in my yard over the years. They’re patterned with black, white-tipped, or just showing blue on one side, depending on which part of a Blue Jay’s body they fell from. Each one caught my eye as it lay on the ground. It’s amazing how much of the colour has been retained, as some of these are more than fifteen years old. jayfeathers1

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waven Says:

March 6, 2009 at 7:04 pm

Jays have a less than stellar reputations but they are undoubtedly very pretty birds. On a side note, it took me a while to catch up on your posts … I especially liked the seashell ones.

flandrumhill Says:

March 6, 2009 at 7:11 pm

Thanks waven. Why are the jays not popular in your neck of the woods?

Wind Says:

March 7, 2009 at 11:47 am

wow, never knew about the refracting feathers. i’m also a big fan of the crow family. corvidaes i think they’re called. when i first went to england i was mesmerized by the magpies. the crows in tokyo are hawk size and are as numerous as pigeons. how did this group of birds become so intelligent i wonder.

March 7, 2009 at 12:28 pm

I too was surprised to learn about the refracting feathers. Pigment seems to be only one of many ways that colour is created in nature.

Wind, here is a link to a National Geographic article about crows (corvidae) being as clever as primates:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_crows_apes.html
Though I knew they were smart – I didn’t expect them to be *that* smart. New Caledonian crows in the South Pacific (closer to your neck of the woods)are even known to invent and employ tools.

March 7, 2009 at 5:18 pm

In my neck of the woods, jays are considered “thieves” and robbers of nests. This may not be true elsewhere, but here they take advantage of other species of birds, stealing their food or nests or worse. Sometimes jays have been known to push the rightful eggs out of an unattended nest and lay their own there instead. The nesting bird(s) will care for the jay eggs as their own and the jay loses no time or energy caring for its own young. Clever, but it’s made them an unwelcome bird in a lot of places.

March 7, 2009 at 8:00 pm

I have read that they will make use of robins’ nests from a previous season but haven’t heard of anything beyond that. In North America, Cow Birds are guilty of laying their eggs in the nests of other birds so that they can incubate them.

In Canada Blue Jays are very popular birds. We’ve even named a baseball team after them.