Gray Jay

Overview

Gray Jay: Medium-sized, fluffy, crestless jay with gray upperparts, paler underparts, and a short bill. Tail is long and white-tipped. Feeds on insects, carrion, refuse, seed, nuts, berries, mice, eggs and young of other birds. Light and bouyant flight on steady wing beats. Glides between perches.

Range and Habitat

Gray Jay: Resident from Alaska east to Labrador and south across the northern U.S. Most commonly found in coniferous forests.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Gray Jay has many informal names, including "Whiskey-Jack," and "meat-bird.”
They are trusting and easily tamed.
They coat mouthfuls of food with saliva and store them in tree bark and other crevices for later use.
A group of jays has many collective nouns, including a "band", "cast", "party", and "scold" of jays.

The Gray Jay is found in boreal forests throughout North America, in the Rocky Mountains, New Mexico and Arizona. Their natural habitat is found in woodlands that contain vast numbers of black spruce, white spruce, jack pine, lodgepole pine and Englemann spruce. These birds require cold climates because they store their food all year long. They are typically year-round residents, and eat spiders, insects, mushrooms and berries. This species is also prey to bird-eating hawks, and food stores prevent them from having to move southward in the winter. The conservation rating of the Gray Jay is Least Concern.