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blue jay |
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blue jay, common name for a familiar bird (Cyanocitta cristata) of central and E North America, allied to the crow, the raven, and the magpie, belonging to the family Corvidae. Almost a foot (30 cm) long, it is handsome and conspicuous. Its upper parts, including the crest, are grayish violet blue. The wings and tail are bright blue with black and white markings, the neck is collared with black, and the under parts are gray and white. Except during the nesting season it has a raucous cry with hawklike and other imitative sounds. Some winter in their northern range, but many travel south. They feed chiefly on large insects, seeds, and nuts (especially acorns and beechnuts); they also eat eggs and nestlings. When the female blue jay is incubating, she is fed by the male. Blue jays are classified in the phylum Chordata Chordata (kôrdā`tə,–dä`–) ..... Click the link for more information. , subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Passeriformes, family Corvidae. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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| For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes are unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor is anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour is so bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying flower. Not even rats in the wall, for they were starved out, or rather were never baited in -- only squirrels on the roof and under the floor, a whip-poor-will on the ridge-pole, a blue jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck under the house, a screech owl or a cat owl behind it, a flock of wild geese or a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the night. The "rover bird" so-called, the coroneted crane, the red and blue jays, the mocking-bird, the flycatcher, disappeared among the foliage of the immense trees, and all nature revealed symptoms of some approaching catastrophe. |
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