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.
Little 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:
snow white and the seven dwarves will never be the same for me…
Its only a matter of time before they get the taste for human flesh.
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
eeugh, picture of decapitated bird head.
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.
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.
Thanks for writing this.
Interesting to know.