These smarty-pants-of-flight will also imitate hawk calls to scare off other birds! Blue jays are complex social creatures, too. They travel in pairs or family groups, rarely flying off on their own.

If I didn’t see the blue jays, I would have thought a Cooper’s hawk was giving this call. But no, it was just the blue jays. “What a remarkable bird,” I thought to myself.

Blue jays are Jekyll-and-Hyde birds with an attitude, maybe even a temper, ready to blow. ... the jay’s screaming red-shoulder-hawk imitation clears the yard of other birds.

An adult Cooper’s hawk is dark blue-gray on the back and white beneath, barred with reddish-brown. The head is noticeably large, and the long, banded tail is rounded and tipped with a broad band ...

This is the job of the blue jays; they are sentries, alarm systems for the many smaller birds that we enjoy. These bold, bright birds put themselves at risk when they make themselves known so loudly.

Life is a challenge for all birds, even for bird-eating birds. There are diseases like West Nile Virus, parasites in their prey and collisions with windows and vehicles.

Why blue jays are such noisy birds Bird vocalizations range from shrill jeers to whistles and bell tones By Gary Clark , Nature Columnist Updated Sep 22, 2017 10:39 p.m.

They don’t call it the concrete jungle for nothing. A violent bird brawl broke out in Murray Hill Tuesday afternoon when a hawk captured a feathered creature — and a trio of other blue jays ...

If you catch a glimpse of a large, iridescent, blue bird flitting around in the trees, it is probably a Steller’s Jay. This striking bird has a long, prominent, shaggy crest on its head and a ...