General

Florida Scrub-Jay: Medium-sized, crestless jay with gray upperparts and underparts, blue head, and pale eyebrows. Throat is gray and breast has blue-gray streaks. Wings and tail are blue. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Florida Scrub-Jay: Restricted to scrublands across central Florida; found in dense growths of low oaks, myrtles, sand pines, palmettos, and thickets.

Breeding and Nesting

Florida Scrub-Jay: Two to five pale green eggs irregularly spotted with red-brown are laid in a nest made of bulky sticks, lined with roots, twigs, moss, grass, and hair, and built on a horizontal branch or in the crotch of a low tree or bush, 2 to 12 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 15 to 17 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Florida Scrub-Jay: Eats insects, spiders, ticks, mice, small turtles, eggs and young of smaller birds, acorns, nuts, and fruits. Forages in low to middle levels in vegetation or hops on the ground.

Readily Eats

Peanuts, Sunflower Seed

Vocalization

Florida Scrub-Jay: Song is a harsh throaty "quay-quay-quay" or "cheek-cheek-cheek."

Similar Species

Florida Scrub-Jay: Blue Jay has slightly larger, chunkier body, blue crest, black collar from breast to nape, black back, and bold white spots on wings and tail.