Steller’s black-headed blue jay [1] ( lat. Cyanocitta stelleri ) is a songbird from the Corvidae family . It lives in North America. The species epithet is given in honor of the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746). The symbol of British Columbia .
| Steller's Black-headed Blue Jay |
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| Scientific classification |
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| No rank : | Bilateral symmetrical |
| View: | Steller's Black-headed Blue Jay |
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| International scientific name |
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Cyanocitta stelleri ( Gmelin , 1788 ) |
| Security status |
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Least ConcernedIUCN 3.1 Least Concern : 22705614 |
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Content
The Steller’s black-headed blue jay is 30 cm long. The beak is longer and thinner, and the crest is larger than that of the blue jay . The plumage on the head, throat, chest and upper back is black, the belly, lower back, tail and wings are dark blue. There are white stripes on the forehead, some birds have white eyebrows. The feathers and tail have darker transverse stripes. The appearance of the bird varies in the area of distribution. While the head is brown-black in the north, closer to the south it becomes more bluish.
The Steller’s black-headed blue jay inhabits wooded mountainsides and light pine groves in western America from Alaska to California and Central America. In winter, birds can also be found on the plain.
Jay is looking for its prey - invertebrates, mice, baby rats, eggs and chicks - on the ground or on trees. Plant food, such as seeds, nuts, berries, fruits and stems of cacti, acorns and coniferous seeds, is stocked for the winter. Like other corvidae birds, a jay can hold food with its foot and hammer with its beak. The beak is also used for digging and tearing loose bark. Birds live in pairs and families, uniting in the presence of a good food supply in large flocks of more than 10 birds.
A cup-shaped nest is built from branches, leaves, moss and moss on a horizontal branch near a tree trunk. In clutch there are from 2 to 6 eggs of light greenish-blue color with brown or olive spots. The female incubates mainly from 17 to 18 days. At the age of 3 weeks, young birds become independent. Where the species range overlaps with that of the blue jay, such as in Colorado, hybrid forms can be observed.
- ↑ Boehme R. L. , Flint V. E. The Bilingual Dictionary of Animal Names. Birds. Latin, Russian, English, German, French / Ed. ed. Acad. V. E. Sokolova . - M .: Rus. lang., "RUSSO", 1994. - S. 470. - 2030 copies. - ISBN 5-200-00643-0 .
- Colin Harrison & Alan Greensmith: Vögel. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London 1993, 2000, ISBN 3-8310-0785-3
- Bryan Richard: Vögel. Parragon, Bath, ISBN 1-4054-5506-3
