The Jay, The Forest Gardener
The Eurasian jay ( Garrulus glandarius ) is a very special bird that lives throughout Europe and much of Asia. It is a corvid relative of crows and magpies that is vital for the expansion of our forests, thanks to one of its peculiar behaviors.
In Spain we can find it throughout the peninsula, although its largest populations are concentrated in the north. Its wide distribution allows us to find it in the Maghreb, Siberia or the Himalayas.
Jay characteristics
This bird is unmistakable, because unlike the rest of corvids it is very colorful, with plumage of ocher, grayish, whitish tones and with particular designs that are its hallmark : it has a black mustache on the sides of its beak and a panel of feathers Turquoise.
This medium-sized species, smaller than a crow and smaller than a blackbird, is quite noisy and emits hoarse and harsh sounds, with a certain metallic sound, which it uses as an alert call. It is also capable of imitating, in a certain sense, the sounds of other birds, such as those of some raptors such as the buzzard.
The unique behavior of the jay
The jay stands out for being an extremely intelligent bird, like other species of corvids. They have very specialized behaviors, and some of them make them true gardeners of our forests.
Some examples are the use of treats and gifts by males in mating rituals. This behavior is performed by few species, since in most cases it means that the species understands the wishes of other individuals, something frankly complicated.
It has also been seen that they can have complex social structures and express their state of mind through their vocalizations; something of which there are hardly any records in the animal world, although there are examples such as the chimpanzee.
This bird is also an example of the use of tools in animals, like crows, and understands the permanence of the object. This means that if you hide objects, such as a fruit in a glass, the animal understands perfectly that the food has not disappeared. They even use ants as a drug against parasites through ant baths.
Like other corvids, jays are specialists in a surveillance and alert system to ensure that they are not attacked by predators. These birds quickly locate the raptors and perform alert vocalizations to then harass the predator among several and thus leave the group alone.
The gardener of the woods
The most important behavior is its ability to save seeds, especially acorns or nuts, for cold and less favorable times.
The researchers suspected that this behavior was much more complex than it might appear. They found through different experiments that the jay’s habit of storing food is due to its ability to plan for the future, something that was thought only could be done by human beings.
This behavior is what makes it a fundamental animal for our forests. In many cases, the jays do not consume all of their deposits, or they may be forgotten.
Thus, the seeds germinate and the forests expand when these heavy fruits are moved from place, which can hardly be spread in any other way.
This behavior is being used in Portugal to reforest burned forests; And it is that a Portuguese NGO has created deposits of native acorns in the forests so that the jays end up forming a new forest where only ash remains.
