Spot California Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma californica)

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The California Scrub Jay is a fairly large songbird with lanky dimensions. The tail is long and floppy; the bird often adopts a hunched-over posture. The bill is straight and stout, with a hook at the tip Rich azure blue and gray above, with a clean, pale underside broken up by a blue necklace. In birds, the color blue depends on lighting, so California Scrub-Jays can also look simply dark. Diet and behavioral habits: A fairly common resident, since 1980, look for California Scrub-Jays in open habitats, like that of the West Mesa of Balboa Park. Assertive, vocal, and inquisitive, you’ll often notice scrub-jays silhouetted high in trees, on wires, or on posts where they act as lookouts. Scrub Jays are omnivorous and their diet varies by season. They eat a variety of insects in summer as well as, a few spiders and snails. Their winter diet may be mostly acorns and other seeds, nuts, and berries. They will also eat rodents, eggs and young of other birds, and small reptiles and amphibians. Nesting habits: Unlike some other Jays, this species breeds in isolated pairs, and stay together all year. Nest site is in a shrub or tree, 5-15’ above the ground, but sometimes higher. The nest, built by both sexes, is a well-built, thick-walled cup of twigs and grass, lined with rootlets and sometimes with animal hair.

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