Blue Jay
(Cyanocitta cristata)

Overview

Summary

© Christian Artuso
For additional photos and vocalizations, visit Dendroica. (Link opens in a new window.)

The Blue Jay is a familiar and common inhabitant of Canada's southern coniferous, deciduous and mixed forests and urban wooded areas, with a range that reaches from Newfoundland to Alberta. Results from the Breeding Bird Survey indicate that populations have increased moderately since about 1970, but over the most recent decade (2002-2012), the populations have stabilised. There are few conservation concerns for this adaptable species.

Designations

Population status

Population estimate

Distribution maps

• BirdLife International / NatureServe
• Breeding Bird Survey (BBS): Relative Abundance and Breeding Distribution (1993-2012)

Migration strategy, occurrence

Responsibility for conservation of world population

Conservation and management

Sometimes considered a pest of agricultural crops and a predator of passerine eggs and nestlings, especially in fragmented forests, the Blue Jay shows flexibility and adaptability among human-altered habitats and is unlikely to be threatened by moderate changes to the forest and urban landscape (Tarvin and Woolfenden 1999).

Bird conservation region strategies

Environment and Climate Change Canada and partners have developed Bird Conservation Region Strategies in each of Canada’s Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs). In these strategies, selected species are identified as priorities for one or more of the following reasons:

• conservation concerns (i.e., species vulnerable due to population size, distribution, population trend, abundance, or threats)
• stewardship responsibilities (i.e., species that typify the regional avifauna or have a large proportion of their range or population in the sub-region)
• management concerns (i.e., species that require ongoing management because of their socio-economic importance as game species, or because of their impacts on other species or habitats)
• other concerns (i.e., species deemed a priority by regional experts for other reasons than those listed above or because they are listed as species at risk or concern at the provincial level)

Select any of the sub-regions below to view the BCR strategy for additional details.

References

• Tarvin, K.A. and G.E. Woolfenden. 1999. Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Tarvin, K.A. and G.E. Woolfenden. 1999. Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. (Link)