In the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas lives one of the most beautiful and charismatic bird species in the entire continent: the Green Jay. Green Jays are extremely distinctive in their appearance. They have a dark green back with a light green underside. Their tail starts out greenish at the base and fades to blue at the end of the feathers. The most striking feature of this species is the royal blue and black patterning on their face. The black stretches from the top of the chest, up the neck and near the eyes while the blue starts at the back of the neck and comes around to the front of the face, curling around to the cheeks. Green Jays also gave a small blue spot on each side of their head where their eyebrows would be. It’s worth noting that there are actually two different populations of green jays with one living in South America and the other living in central America, Mexico and the United States. The population in South America is known as the Inca subspecies and looks slightly different with a whitish to yellow top of their head.

When looking at the green Jays range map, it’s clear to see these two different populations of green jays with the more southern population forming something of “c” shape around the northwestern part of South America. The more northern population resides in some of the Central American countries such as Honduras and Guatemala all the way north through the southwestern and complete eastern coast of Mexico. In the United States, the only state to find this species in is Texas where they inhabit the most southern tip of the state.

Part of the appeal of the green jay as a species is certainly partially due to its coloration and rarity in the United States, but another thing about them that people love is their charismatic personality. The word charismatic is thrown out a lot with animals. Essentially it means the creature in question is endearing in some way due to intelligence or goofiness or sometimes because they display qualities that make them easy to anthropomorphize such as living in family groups. Green Jays certainly display a lot of intelligence and are actually one of the few North American bird species that have been observed using tools. Oftentimes this action comes in the form of a bird using sticks to pry open crevices in tree bark to search for insects. They will also imitate the sounds of birds of prey in an attempt to scare away other birds from food sources they wish to gain access to. 

Speaking of food, Green Jays have an incredibly varied diet. They eat insects, nuts, seeds, fruit, eggs of other birds, and small vertebrates. When foraging, Green Jays are very systematic in their approach. They will move together in groups and scour every inch of plants and trees. They will also dig through the leaf litter as they investigate the ground for anything tasty 

Another interesting thing about these birds is the way that they flock together. Green Jays form family groupings consisting of a breeding pair of birds, that pairs nonbreeding nestlings from the prior year and the chicks of the current year. The nonbreeding birds that were hatched the prior year assist in defending the territory and assisting the breeding pair, something like older siblings looking after the younger ones. 

Green Jays live in different habitats depending on the continent they inhabit. In South America they live in woodlands in both high and low elevation areas as well as rainforests and plantations. In North America, this species also inhabits woodlands, but they can also be found in scrub and dry forests.

Seeing Green Jays in the wild they are certainly entertaining and intelligent. They move like I imagine small dinosaurs moved with a lot of calculated motions and looking naturally inquisitive. Sometimes when you look at bird species you can tell how intelligent they are simply by how they move, and act and green jays certainly fall into that category. Much like other jay species such as Blue Jays, the green jays we encountered made a lot of different calls as they went about their business of foraging and communicating with each other. As I mentioned they are mimics and can copy the sounds of other birds, so it wasn’t uncommon to hear them make new noises. 

In South Texas, Green Jays are common if you know where to look and I would highly recommend taking a trip to see this amazing bird species at least once. Did you enjoy this video? Let us know in the comments below and as always, thanks for reading, we’ll see you next time, on Badgerland Birding.