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  • Bird ID please (no picture, good luck!)
  • psychle
    Free Member

    Spotted a bird I’ve never seen before today, it’s main distinguishing feature were bright sky blue ‘flashes’ on it’s wings, it was about the size of a blackbird maybe a bit larger, looked kind of crow like (if I was back in Oz, I would’ve said Kookaburra like!). Definitely too big to be a baby Robin btw… 🙂

    Any ideas?

    RealMan
    Free Member

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    psychle
    Free Member

    Jay, yep, that’s the one… pretty common then eh? Wonder why I’ve never seen one before, it’s fairly distinctive with those blue wings. Looked like a really smart bird, it sat there watching me and let me get quite close before going on it’s way, had a proper inquisitive look to it, I liked it 😀

    derek_starship
    Free Member

    Jays are common but incredibly wiley. They are the Sophie-Ellis Bextor of the avian world. Magpies are the Katie Price!

    TuckerUK
    Free Member

    Jays are allegedly very shy, but when we used to live in Croydon we had a Jay regularly visit the garden, sometimes a pair. Pretty birds, bloody noisy though.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Jays are very common in their habitat, which seems to be pine woods. I’ve never seen one round Cardiff or in Herefordshire, but they were everywhere in Hampshire, saw one every day.

    Lovely birds tho. There are also some even more spectacular bright blue ones in parts of the USA.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    Looked like a really smart bird

    Well they’re members of the crow family, so therefore yeah – pretty intelligent. They are shy compared to other Corvids, I had one as a pet for 7 years and he always remained very nervous despite having been hand reared. Hand reared magpies in contrast are silly tame and highly affectionate.

    Their calls aren’t just very noisy, they’re also highly unpleasant – very loud screams.

    Britain’s imperial past actually has a lot to thank jays for. Jays are particularly keen on acorns, which when in plentiful supply they will collect and hide by burying them in the ground. They often forget the location of their caches or simply have more than they need, as a consequence the buried acorns sprout and grow into oak trees. These oak trees were once vital to British Navy as they provided the timber to build its ships. It was with these ships that Britain was able to patrol the seas and secure territorial claims in far off distant lands. Jays therefore made a vital contribution to the creation of the British Empire – that’s a fact that is.

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