The Jay

The jay feeding habits make this bird one of the most powerful ally of our oak forest, burying thousands of acorns they are the main oak expansion vectors.
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The jay (Garrulus glandarius) is a passerine bird belonging to the family Corvidae. In Italian this bird is called acorn-eater, because of the feeding habits of these birds. They are robust-looking birds, equipped with a large, square, elongated head with a strong, conical beak and erect apex feathers that form a crest that the animal raises in excitement or interest: the legs are strong, the wings rounded, and the tail is rather long. The plumage is unmistakable: they are pure white in the areas around the nostrils, the throat, the eyes and the undertail, while the forehead and apex have black-tipped white feathers. On the sides of the beak is a broad black mustache that curves downward to the upper edge of the neck. Also black are the secondary and primary remiges and the tail. The coverts have a distinctive bright blue color, interspersed with horizontal black bands edged with bluish. This is unique among European birds, making the jay unmistakable even in flight, along with the broad black and white wing bands. In contrast, the rest of the livery is gray-beige.

The jay is a bird that generally lives in pairs, but can also sometimes be observed in small groups. These birds, with essentially diurnal living habits, move indifferently among the various layers of wooded areas. They spend most of the time searching for food on the ground, rest among bushes and underbrush, and then take refuge among tree branches in times of escape from predators or at night. The jays' call is loud and harsh, it is emitted very frequently, and can be heard especially during the warm months. The jay is also able to imitate sounds perceived in its surroundings, from birdsong (including the calls of its own potential predators, including tawny owls) to the human voice.

The jay feeding habits make this bird one of the most powerful ally of our oak forest. It tends to be an omnivorous with a carnivorous/insectivorous portion of the diet during the breeding season, with a natural pesticide function. However, acorns make up more than half of this animal's diet. The jay is known to be very active in cramming excess food into numerous hiding places placed in tree stumps, under tree bark or on the ground, with a radius of up to 20 km from the collection site. The fact that a single specimen can bury about a thousand acorns per year has meant that prior to human intervention, jays have been the main vector of expansion for the oak and holm oak.

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