Arizona's Blue Jays and other Corvids

North Americans love their birds, and two of the most popular might be the northern cardinal and the blue jay. While Arizonans enjoying seeing the cardinal on occasional visits to their backyard feeders, it's not nearly as common here as it is east of the Mississippi. However, we never see the noisy but colorful blue jay that populates only central and eastern regions of the continent. Or don't we?

It turns out we've got several blue-colored jay species that call the state home, but none of them are the generically named blue jay from the east. Our Steller's jay is similarly shaped as the blue jay, also with a long crest and some striped wings and tail feathers. But it's colored in shades of blue, black and gray, with almost no white. Nevertheless it's a close cousin, in the same genus cyanocitta.

Other blue-colored jays in the state include the Woodhouse's scrub jay, the pinyon jay and the Mexican jay, all similarly shaped, without crests. All the aforementioned jays - including the Steller's and the blue - are part of larger family of birds known as corvidae or corvids - sometimes called the crow family.

Besides crows, other corvids in Arizona include the common raven, maybe the largest and cleverest member of that family. And there are more species, mostly in the far northern part of the state, like the Clark's nutcracker and the black-billed magpie. Alas, it will take a future trip into the wild for some photographs of those birds. Stay tuned!