The Eurasian Jay is a species of corvid that lives across much of Europe and temperate parts of Asia. There are over thirty recognized subspecies of this common and widespread bird. The nominate European group displays the streaked head found on our Birdorable bird. Other subspecies may have black caps, reddish heads, or different colored wing-patches. Males and females look alike.
The Eurasian Jay, known simply as Jay by English-speakers across the bird's range, is part of the corvid family. This group includes crows and ravens. The family is well-known for its intelligence. The Jay in particular is known to be a skilled mimic, able to copy the songs or calls of other bird species.
The Eurasian Jay is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). The population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
All cute bird fans grab your crayons, because we've just added three new Birdorable coloring pages! Go to Coloring Pages to download the PDFs. You can visit the meet pages for each bird to check the colors: Cockatiel, Eurasian Jay and Canada Goose. Read more »
A recent study involving Eurasian Jays found that the birds, related to Blue Jays and crows, demonstrate an aspect of intelligence previously thought only to exist in humans. Male Eurasian Jays present their... Read more »
