Little Known Fact: Blue Jays are Vicious Carnivores

Look at that Blue Jay, isn’t he cute? They are so beautiful, and so are their songs! I wonder what he had for lunch, probably some berries or something. Such wonderful little creatures.

evil blue jayLittle does my grandma know, as she watches the birds fly and sing out her window, that Blue Jays actually readily kill and eat other song birds.

I didn’t know either, until today. I was sitting in the Cascade Dining Hall enjoying my breakfast looking out the window, when I saw a Blue Jay eating something in a tree. As I looked closer, I realized that it was another bird! I rushed outside to try to get a video. Just as I started to film, the bird saw me and flew away with the carcass, dropping the decapitated head at my feet. You can view the pretty graphic picture here.

What a way to start the morning! Since I had never even heard of this before, I decided to do some research. The Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) is actually a member of the Crow (Corvidae) family. All crows eat meat, some more than others. Although Blue Jays eat about 3 times as much plant matter as it does meat, a large part of their diet is made up of other animals such as mice, fish, bats and other small birds. All members of the crow family are know for their intelligence, thats why its so hard for Fluffy to kill them. You can read more about the Corvidae family on this fascinating website: http://science.jrank.org/pages/1886/Crows-Jays.html

Still don’t believe me? Check out this youtube video, the guy had better luck filming it than I did:

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Bizzare, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

No Responses to “Little Known Fact: Blue Jays are Vicious Carnivores”

brosef April 15th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

snow white and the seven dwarves will never be the same for me…

Fingel April 15th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Its only a matter of time before they get the taste for human flesh.

Aly May 13th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

I saw one catch a small mouse or a vole in my flower garden, drop it and come back a minute later and fly off.

Cheryl May 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

I have seen a Blue Jay eating dead chipmunks in the road on 4-5 occasions for about 3 weeks now…I thought it was just one rogue meat eater!!! I always knew they were nasty little suckers, but had no idea they were carnivores!!!

Mike May 26th, 2008 at 8:19 am

Even though that bird is blue, it does not mean that it’s a blue jay. That does not look like a blue jay to me. Nice job capturing video footage though.

Steven June 11th, 2008 at 11:30 am

The nice thing about killing bluejays is that when you shoot one off the fence others keep comming to see why joe dropped dead and to bitch. Soon you will have a pile of dead bluejays, a dozen easy, and use a BB or pelet gun.

mynameistux June 14th, 2008 at 10:34 pm

eeugh, picture of decapitated bird head.

Joyce June 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am

I have sparrow boxes on my deck and I have twice witnessed a blue jay stealing baby sparrows and eating them. I realize it’s all part of nature but was shocked anyway.

Sandy October 14th, 2008 at 6:48 am

I feed birds and have do so for a couple years, and yesterday sitting and watching them out the window I seen a Blue Jay get one of the finches and kill it. I could not believe it.Then the Blue Jay took the dead little bird and fly into my cedar tree out side my window. I dont know why he did that I have never seen a Blue Jay do such a thing, it shocked me.

Modesty October 25th, 2008 at 1:09 am

Thanks for writing this.

Semele October 27th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Interesting to know.

jalen December 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am

i read that they all type of things

Alice December 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

It is a Scrub Jay. In the West we have Scrub Jays (and Steller’s Jays) but not Blue Jays.

But I do not know about Jays being hard for cats to catch. My Sammy has caught 4 birds all of them were Scrub Jays. I knew they ate eggs and baby birds but I had not thought of them being capable of killing adult birds.

On the other hand the jays are great sentries and often warn the little birds of of an incoming threat.

Kris April 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am

Thanks for this post– I watched a jay do this yesterday- had a small sparrow on the deck, ripping it apart, and then picked it up and flew off with it. Seemed very viscious- I never heard of this! Now they are looking like big bullies in our daily feeder mix of Doves, jays, blackbirds, sparrows and finches.

Vance May 1st, 2009 at 7:47 am

I have feeders with finches, sparrows, pigeons, doves, etc. This morning I witnessed my first scrub jay killing a sparrow. I knew they robbed eggs but did not know they would kill and eat other birds!!

Susette May 8th, 2009 at 8:20 pm

I just got baby chicks and a blue jay flew into the pen. I was so shocked. It looked like he was after the chicks. Has anyone ever seen something like this? And is there anything that will keep them away.

Jennifer May 13th, 2009 at 9:35 am

I found your site today when I witnessed my own “Wild Kingdom” moment. I never knew this about blue jays. We have a bird feeder at work for our assortment of finches, and I arrived at work early this morning to have a little quiet moment watching the finches while sipping my coffee.

A finch flew into the mirrored window of the office, and when I went to investigate the noise, I saw him struggling to get up from the ground when a blue jay swooped down on it and began to rip it apart.

I didn’t react quick enough, because At first I thought the jay was trying to rescue the little bird, but then, after watching the little bird struggle to get away, the jay picked it up in it’s beak and flew to the tree in the parking lot. I went to look at the the crime scene and there was a huge puddle of blood, along with guts from the still-alive finch. ugh! Then, after that, the jay kept attacking the finches that tried to eat at the feeder.

I always knew they were violent aggressive birds, but I didn’t know they were carnivores. Thanks for your information, I’m glad I found your site.

Karie May 25th, 2009 at 5:48 pm

Thanks for sharing this information. I just watched with horror as a scrub jay attacked an adult sparrow right outside my apartment building (San Francisco Bay Area, California). It kept holding the sparrow down and jabbing at it with its beak. Feathers were flying, and another sparrow was hopping around nearby, apparently hoping it could do something to save the prey. The scrub jay eventually flew off with the sparrow in its beak. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Thanks for the confirmation that scrub jays eat other birds.

Jamie June 2nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm

June 2nd, 2009 — I was pulling up in front of my parents home and saw a group of birds in the street. Mostly sparrows, but there was one Cardinal and one Blue Jay. The Blue Jay was picking up and tossing around a sparrow (that was still alive) I tried to scare away the birds to try to help the little one that was getting beat up by the Blue Jay but the Blue Jay picked it up and flew off with it! I couldn’t believe my eyes!!

My mom loves the birds and has a bird feeder on her front porch….I told her any my dad what happened and they couldn’t believe it either! None of us thought that a Blue Jay would do that!

Thanks for the info….I never knew they were carnivores!!

Laura June 5th, 2009 at 7:25 pm

I had no idea that blue jays were carnivores! I watched this morning as a robin and a mockingbird were both attacking a blue jay -usually it’s each other. I then saw the blue jay fly off with what appeared to be a baby bird in it’s beak! I will never view them the same again!

SuziQu June 7th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

I just come on to this site to find out about the attack I just witnessed. Two scrubs were making a racket but another sound came through. They were after a baby sparrow! The sparrow got into some of my thick ferns but the jays have been back looking for it. I fear the worst for the baby and I think the parents have given up hope. There has been no sign of their search.

William June 11th, 2009 at 7:13 am

I had a dream about carnivorous blue jays. So I looked it up, and lo and behold…they are.

Peter June 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

I just saw this, too. My story is a lot like an earlier one. I’m sitting on my couch looking out the window and a finch bangs into the window and falls onto the porch, stunned. Within ten seconds, a scrub jay is down on top of the finch, kills it and then takes the carcass and flies away with it. I never knew they did that.

Vince June 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am

How do i get rid of the Blue Jays, anyway besides a pellet gun? Because mine needs a new seal and Would rather put somethin poisonous that only a BlueJay will eat. The bastards have found out I feed alot of birds and there was like 6 of them out there yesterday. I have doves and little song birds that come all the time but when the BJ’s come only the doves sometimes stay. If they kill any of my little ones it will be WAR. My friend told me that they find food source and guard it.

olivia July 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

that bird in the video isn’t a bluejay at all!

…its a scrub jay =D

could you describe the bird you saw eating the other bird because scrub jays lack teh black and white bands on their feathers that blue jays have.

Tom August 11th, 2009 at 8:37 pm

This past Saturday, I heard this bang against my window and looked out to see a poor bird on the ground and to my suprise a scrub jay attacking and killing it to eat. It flew away with the bird in its mouth. Like others on this site, I was shocked and had no idea. Not five minutes later I heard another bang against the window and looked out to see a bird crippled on the floor. I went to check 5 minutes later and it was gone. I’m convinced the jay was tricking these birds to run into the window so that it could eat them. I had to look it up on the web and I think this site confirms it. Tricky savage little guys…

Dead eye Dave September 13th, 2009 at 8:10 am

Yep they are Scrub (stellar) Jays. Ya gotta get tuff and shoot all you see as you will have no other birds around just their excessive unnerving squaking. They even ran off all my Robins which I love to have around. The only amazing thing I saw concerning a natural approach to ridding them was one afternoon I was sitting outside and saw a Scrub Jay diving and flying like he was scared to death,,, what was after him? A Hummingbird!!! It was so manuverable and so fast it just kept jabing the Jay with it’s pointy beak. That Jay did not come back all day. It was the coolest thing. I was standing and rooting for this tiny beauty. So, the moral is,,, encourage as many as possible Hummingbirds and you will run those rottem suckers away. Sign me pissed off in Oregon.

josh October 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

today at work, as i was smokeing outside, under a birds nest, two deheaded baby birds fell out of there nest. i looked up to see a blue jay popping out of the nest, and sat there looking at me. as soon as i went back inside, the blue jay flew down and picked up one the dead birds and flew off, alil while later the blue jay came back and killed a third bird. nasty lil suckers

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