Posted on 09/30/2025 5:36:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
The rare hybrid offspring of a blue jay and a green jay is likely a result of weather-related shifts in the range of two species.
A rare hybrid bird identified in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas (center panel, credit: Brian Stokes) is the result of mating between a male blue jay (left, credit: Travis Maher/Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Macaulay Library) and a female green jay (right, credit: Dan O’Brien/Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Macaulay Library).
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Biologists at The University of Texas at Austin, who have reported discovering a bird that’s the natural result of a green jay and a blue jay’s mating, say it may be among the first examples of a hybrid animal that exists because of recent changing patterns in the climate. The two different parent species are separated by 7 million years of evolution, and their ranges didn’t overlap as recently as a few decades ago.
“We think it’s the first observed vertebrate that’s hybridized as a result of two species both expanding their ranges due, at least in part, to climate change,” said Brian Stokes, a graduate student in ecology, evolution and behavior at UT and first author of the study.
Stokes noted that past vertebrate hybrids have resulted from human activity, like the introduction of invasive species, or the recent expansion of one species’ range into another’s – think polar bears and grizzlies – but this case appears to have occurred when shifts in weather patterns spurred the expansion of both parent species.
In the 1950s, the ranges of green jays, a tropical bird found across Central America, extended just barely up from Mexico into south Texas and the range of blue jays, a temperate bird living all across the Eastern U.S., only extended about as far west as Houston. They almost never came into contact with each other. But since then, as green jays have pushed north and blue jays have pushed west, their ranges have converged around San Antonio.
Green Jay and Blue Jay occurrences in Texas reported from 2000 to 2023 in eBird, a popular app for birders and citizen scientists to share their observations. Green points represent green jay occurrences, blue points denote blue jay occurrences and black points indicate localities of recorded co-occurrence. Credit: Brian Stokes.
As a Ph.D. candidate studying green jays in Texas, Stokes was in the habit of monitoring several social media sites where birders share photos of their sightings. It was one of several ways he located birds to trap, take blood samples for genetic analysis and release unharmed back to the wild. One day, he saw a grainy photo of an odd-looking blue bird with a black mask and white chest posted by a woman in a suburb northeast of San Antonio. It was vaguely like a blue jay, but clearly different. The backyard birder invited Stokes to her house to see it firsthand.
“The first day, we tried to catch it, but it was really uncooperative,” Stokes said. “But the second day, we got lucky.”
The bird got tangled in a mist net, basically a long rectangular mesh of black nylon threads stretched between two poles that is easy for a flying bird to overlook as it’s soaring through the air, focused on some destination beyond. Stokes caught and released dozens of other birds, before his quarry finally blundered into his net on the second day.
Stokes took a quick blood sample of this strange bird, banded its leg to help relocate it in the future, and then let it go. Interestingly, the bird disappeared for a few years and then returned to the woman’s yard in June 2025. It’s not clear what was so special about her yard.
“I don’t know what it was, but it was kind of like random happenstance,” he said. “If it had gone two houses down, probably it would have never been reported anywhere.”
According to an analysis by Stokes and his faculty advisor, integrative biology professor Tim Keitt, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, the bird is a male hybrid offspring of a green jay mother and a blue jay father. That makes it like another hybrid that researchers in the 1970s brought into being by crossing a green jay and a blue jay in captivity. That taxidermically preserved bird looks much like the one Stokes and Keitt describe and is in the collections of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.
“Hybridization is probably way more common in the natural world than researchers know about because there’s just so much inability to report these things happening,” Stokes said. “And it’s probably possible in a lot of species that we just don’t see because they’re physically separated from one another and so they don’t get the chance to try to mate.”
The scientists’ work was supported by a ConTex Collaborative Research Grant through UT System, the Texas EcoLab Program and Planet Texas 2050, a University of Texas at Austin grand challenge initiative.
The researchers did not opt to name the hybrid bird, but other naturally occurring hybrids have received nicknames like “grolar bear” for the polar bear-grizzly hybrid, “coywolf” for a creature that’s part coyote and part wolf and “narluga” for an animal with both narwhal and beluga whale parents.
To download high resolution images, visit: https://utexas.box.com/s/qt9irnnur7vk9c9qcwzyfrxmyxdgii3d
You’re right. Get near their nest and they will dive bomb your head. Lessons learned as a child.
Can you come get me?
Blue Jays are real dicks.
Still better than the Yankees.
__________________
Or the Red Sox
The article does not say whether the offspring are fertile.
Blue Jays are real dicks.
Still better than the Yankees.
__________________
Or the Red Sox
And the Mariners and the Indians.
You can call me Ray Jay or you can call me Grue Jay but don’t call me Blue Jay.
Those were the days..........................
So some Blue or Green Jay has been catbirding around! Sly devils you know they have the best pick up lines!
👍
Yes, change is the constant in the climate equation.
Jays aren’t the only ones who will dive bomb you as you get near their nest. Many birds will do this.
Shouldn’t they be “Yellow” Jays?
Bleen Jay ?
“Once you go green, ...”
But but but. Global warming. Trump’s fault. We never had hybridized natural breeding before.... All jay birds know there are hard and fast lines scientists have defined that no animal must ever cross.
I owe my interest in Blue Jays to a woman from Minnesota (I think) who followed and actually befriended an extended band of Blue Jays for years. She spent years doing it, and could recognize them as individuals, something I have been unable to do.
If you enjoy birds, her extensive YouTube Channel has a huge amount of entertaining and informative content. She is called "Leslie The Bird Nerd", and has extensive footage of her observing and interacting with the Blue Jays and other birds: LINK: Leslie The Bird Nerd YouTube Channel
People on this thread are correct, Blue Jays do have a bad reputation for being bullies, and well deserved as I have personally observed a Blue Jay actually brutally murder a Sparrow that it took issue with (more about that later in this post) and they also raid nests, that kind of thing. But nature is nature. And it most certainly can be (and often is) cruel.
In the last 15 or 20 years, I have grown increasingly interested in birds, where I don't consider myself just a bird watcher, I observe their behavior and have delved deeper into it, as well as their physical characteristics and life patterns. (LOL, part of it is that I parted ways with the NFL a few years back after being a nearly rabid fan for more than 50 years, and I can't play sports anymore, so...I observe birds!)
Birds are one of the few animal species that doesn't run away when they see us humans. They stay close, where we can watch them, but they are also avid watchers of humans. When I lay out in my hammock, there is a lot of bird activity around me, and with my binoculars, I can see birds that are far away, and it is clear that they are directly and intently observing me from hundreds of yards away.
I have about 60 life goals I wrote down before I retired, and one of them to get a Blue Jay to eat out of my hand. That will probably never happen, though, but...I have seen someone do it so it is possible. (I have gotten a variety of wild birds like Chickadees, Juncos, and Titmouses to eat out of my hand, so it gives me a goal.
Here is a Tufted Titmouse eating from my hand:
Blue Jays and Crows are members of the Corvid family, and I am fascinated by both groups, but I love Blue Jays because while Crows are very intelligent birds, they are far more reserved and I dare say, predictable than Blue Jays.
Did you know that Blue Jay plumage isn't really blue, it is gray? If you pick up a Blue Jay feather off the ground, they aren't blue. They only appear blue on the bird because of the way light refracts in the feather. (Unlike Cardinals, which are actually red, and it is the food they eat that causes the red color)
Blue Jays are classified as songbirds (as are Crows) but you wouldn't know it from hearing their noisy jeering call. However, their vocabulary is very deep, and once you understand it (as much as we can understand it) it is fascinating to watch them, and you understand their lifestyle and social groupings.
They are very clannish birds, and they have an interesting repertoire of calls.
They have the Jeer call, which we all know, and it has a variety of uses. The most obvious use is a warning when there is a perceived threat such as a hawk, a cat, or even occasionally, another Blue Jay from a different flock. But the Jeer Call is also used to communicate with other Blue Jays, usually their mate. (They mate long term or for life) They use the "soft" Jeer Call to communicate their location, and they ping each other with it. If you listen to it carefully, the "soft" Jeer Call is different from the "hard" jeer call which is used for serious threats, and has a distinct, and to some, annoying edge. When they use the "soft" jeer call, they are "pinging" their mate or friend, who will then answer back, often from far away, with a "soft" jeer call in response. The hard "Jeer" call, which has nearly an edge of hysteria to it that is missing from the "soft" jeer call.
They have the amusing pump handle group of calls such as the "Squeaky Gate" call. When they do it, they bob up and down when they do it, and I do find it funny to watch, especially when you see a bunch of them doing it all at once, bobbing up and down! It is however, a low-to-medium threat alert when strange Blue Jays are around or a female is being approached by a male that is not her mate. It is also a mating call.
They imitate hawk calls to scare other birds away from a bird feeder.
They have a quiet language called the "Interpair" call, and a related one called the "Whisper" call.
And they have a group of calls called the "Rattle" call. Only females do this call, and it is the only way I have ever been able to tell the difference between a male and a female Blue Jay.
For years, at work, I kept a bird feeder outside the window of my office (which bordered a large copse of trees and heavy vegetation) which I often kept open, and throughout the day, would line up peanuts in the shell along my window sill. The Blue Jays and Titmouse would fly up, land on the open window just a foot or two away, and choose their peanut before flying away with their booty to cache it somewhere!
I had that bird feeder out there for about 15 years, and while I never could tell individual Blue Jays apart, I definitely knew it was the same band. (a group of them is called officially a "Scold", which I love). They were not as afraid of me as any random group of Blue Jays might be. I usually got to work around 6:15-6:30AM each day, and when I opened the blinds to my office, I would see as many as 20 Blue Jays just sitting in the trees, waiting for me to put out the peanuts. (When I walked out the short, enclosed walkway, they would see me, and I could hear the morning stillness broken by that soft "Jeer" they use for communication as they seemed to say "The bald guy with the lab coat who puts out the peanuts is here!"
My morning ritual was to get everything set, put on my lab coat, turn on my computer, look for any immediate issues that needed addressing, then I would put my coffee on, grab a gallon sized bag of bird seed that I brought in with me every day, and I would go out in all weather and fill the bird feeder (one of those ones that if a squirrel jumped on it, it would spin around and throw them off). Then I would go back inside, get my coffee, check the computer again, and open the window.
Here is a video I took of my squirrel-proof bird feeder and marked up for the 2020 election, but you can see the squirrel refusing to let go!
I would begin by throwing peanuts one at a time out onto the ground about 20 feet away. That was how I counted them, because they had a very distinct pecking order. They wouldn't fight-they knew who was the next to fly out for the next thrown peanut. I would throw a peanut and count it, then when it was grabbed, I would throw another. I would repeat this until I threw a peanut that would sit there with no Blue Jay to pick it up. So on any given day I could count 5-20 Blue Jays present.
As each Blue Jay got a peanut, it would fly, as if the devil were chasing it, as fast and directly (as if with great impetus and purpose) as it could to a perch somewhere. There, it would pin the peanut to a brand, and begin pecking it as if it were a woodpecker to break it open.
And there were the ever present squirrels, who the Blue Jays did not mess around with.
Incidentally, when a bunch of Turkeys are around, NOBODY messes with the Turkeys. All the birds and the squirrels give them a wide berth. And they would ferociously go after any peanuts I threw out there, even pecking the head of some lesser turkey that had the temerity to pick up a peanut out of the "pecking order"...you can see them looking up at me expectantly here:
So, if there was a squirrel sulking about, pretending not to notice I was about to throw a peanut, there was almost always a Blue Jay sitting nearby in a shrub or tree, watching for it as well. What I would do is throw the peanut as far as I could away from the squirrel, which a split second before had been nonchalantly poking around as if it didn't know what was going on, but as soon as I threw it would run hell-bent for leather directly for the thrown peanut. But If I threw it correctly, the Blue Jay could immediately swoop over at the same time and scoop up the peanut a split second before the frustrated squirrel could reach it.
Then, as the squirrel sat there with its sides heaving, I would throw a peanut in the exact opposite direction as far as I could, and the squirrel would resolutely gather itself up and run full speed towards it, but another Blue Jay would swoop down and snatch it before the squirrel could arrive. Interestingly, the squirrel usually got the nature of this exercise pretty quickly, and if I threw another peanut in the other direction, it would decline to contest it.
Another thing about Blue Jays-they definitely understood the concept of greed. (I know I am anthropomorphizing them, but it is undeniable to me they get "greed") If I threw out two peanuts at the same time, it was hilarious to watch the occasional Blue Jay try to pick up both of them. They would try and try unsuccessfully to get the peanut into its throat pouch (because a whole peanut is just a little too big to get down, and it looked like they were determinedly choking or gagging, but would not give up. Most of the time they would then fly away. But once, I watched one try and try and try, then with dogged determination, while holding one peanut in its mouth, it impaled the other one on its beak before flying away!
But one of the most amusing behaviors to me is their desire to get the biggest peanut. Even if the size differential was slight, they invariably and without fail would discriminate and take the slightly bigger peanut. If I threw out two peanuts of totally disparate sizes, the Blue Jays with 100% reliability would snatch up the biggest peanut first and fly away as if the Devil itself were chasing it.
But if I carefully chose two peanuts of almost exactly the same size and shape and threw them out at the same time, the Blue Jay would fly down, and pick one up. Then, eyeballing the other one, it would drop it and pick up the other one. Then, as if totally mired in indecision, it would release that one and pick up the first one again. I counted one Blue Jay do this five times before it seemed to decide in irritation there was no difference, and it flew off with one of them!
I saw one pick up a peanut one day, and as it flew away, I threw out another peanut that was far larger, and the Blue Jay did a sharp 180 turn, landed, spit out the smaller peanut and picked up the bigger one before flying away with its prize! It was hilarious! It spat out the peanut it had with such disdain that I swear I nearly heard it go "Pah!" as it ejected the smaller peanut in disgust!
Finally, the "Sparrow Murder". I know this completely sounds like imparting a characterization of a human behavior on a wild animal, but it was exactly that.
It wasn't for food, and there was something quite deliberate and sadistic about it.
I had my window open one morning working, and I kept hearing this really annoying animal sound, but I continued working, but after a while of trying to ignore it (even closing the window) I stopped working to investigate what was making it.
As I looked out the window, I could see a Blue Jay on the ground, pecking at something I figured was some small animal of some kind, like a mouse. I couldn't stand that that horrible sound, so I decided I had to end it because I couldn't work.
I walked outside, and as I walked around the corner towards the feeder, I could see the blue jay standing on the sparrow, deliberately pecking. It looked up and saw me, and as I walked closer, it took one more peck, then flew away.
The sparrow had its eyes pecked out, and oddly, there was sparrow blood all over its head. I guess those little birds didn't even seem like they had blood in them. But it was quivering and making noises, so I just put it out of its misery with the heel of my shoe.
Seriously, there was a specific sense of malice on the part of that Blue Jay. It wasn't killing it to eat it because it could have easily done that in seconds. It was almost as if it had a vendetta against that sparrow for something, and was making sport of killing it because it LIKED killing it with malice. Never thought I would anthropomorphize an animal like that, but I couldn't explain it any other way.
When the Blue Jay saw me appear around the corner of the trail to walk towards it, it took one, last...defiant peck. There was a feeling of "How do you like those apples, you effing sparrow piece of crap?"
So yes...they can be pretty mean animals. But that is part of nature, just as it is in us, I think. But in spite of that, I love watching them! They can be bullies and cruel..."Dicks" as it were, but their behavior is interesting and often amusing to the point of buffoonish clownery!
Blue jays have a lot of respect for woodpeckers. After crows, the woodpeckers take over the feeders. But they usually take some seed and fly p into a tree to eat, then return for more. When it’s the bluejay’s turn, they stay at the feeder until they are full. But they will always scatter the seed all over the ground which some other birds prefer. One day, looking outside the window on a cold winter morning I saw a hawk on the ground under the feeder with something in it’s talons. A closer look revealed a struggling flicker getting i’s feathers plucked. I couldn’t watch, but I didn’t interfere either. Like you said it is nature’s way. They all have to eat. My favorite bird is probably the hummingbirds. Amazing creatures. In the fall, they Fly from Cuba to Central America across the gulf nonstop on necktar. Probably one of nature’s most efficient creatures.
Our Bluejays are mean, vindictive and intelligent.
That they are cousins to crows does not surprise me.
They are practically the same in intelligence and temperament!...............
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