How sweet!! The first time you have seen a blue jay! Fantastic, and so wonderful you were able to give him good advice.

Isn't that a great color for a bird?

The one most of us here (coastal Washington) refer to as blue jay is really Steller's Jay and they are here year round. Noisy, somewhat aggressive birds, they'll rob the robins nests of eggs and young. The last several years I see Scrub jays off and on too but not quite as common.

I don't really know what is going on with the birds. The other morning there were two blue jays and one cardinal, along with a couple dozen robins and the ever-present sparrows. The next morning as I ate my breakfast and read the paper, not one bird anywhere, back yard or in the neighbor's yards.

We have some dense woods about half a mile away and I know that the cardinals and blue jays are there almost year round. A few winters ago I saw some robins in January. For central Illinois that is a bit strange. Robins are not typically the bird to find at a seed feeder, they prefer being on the ground. However, in January, even if it is warmer than usual, a robin will have to work hard to find even a smattering of insects.

I don't know why they don't hang out in SD. We have many here, and it's hardly "south." But we're undoubtedly warmer than you--certainly we are today!

We have many blue jays where I live, in fact, we named our only pro baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays! But even though we sometimes get -25 (which equals -13F) in our winters, the blue jays never fly south. They stick around and are quite aggressive at kicking any cardinals, finches, juncos and chickadees off their perch on the bird feeders. For this reason I have multiple bird feeders in my yard so the smaller birds get to eat, lol!

According to the range map for blue jays, they are year round residents in SD. Their biggest challenge in frigid areas is finding water and food.

Three blue jays were at my birdbath yesterday.
I just love them.

I think that they are so beautiful. They make some of the most interesting sounds, too, besides their most recognizable (and loud) call.

I love the blue birds but not the blue jay. they are just a mean nasty bird.

I wasn't aware the migrated.

My two jays stay all winter, but all of the other birds, such as finches, nuthatches, chickadees, etc., that used to stay here have disappeared. I don't know why, but a number of others have mentioned this happening in their yards. l can't blame the jays, as they have always co-existed with the other birds. I would really like to know why this has happened.

We get two or three of them quite often in my backyard. I think I have pictures on my Flickr account. I'll check.... They're beautiful birds. And loud. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: close up of a Bluejay in my yard

This post was edited by debby_ab on Wed, Nov 12, 14 at 19:32

We have scrub jays here all year long.
Today I spotted a robin........mostly I have house finches.
The white crowned sparrows winter here. They showed up early this year.

I love the Blue Jays. We have them year round, although they are seen infrequently in summer as they spend more time deeper into the woods. At the feeders in the yard, they are the first to sound an alarm when any predator comes on the scene.

I love having the Jays around and think they don't deserve all the bad press they get. But then, I also love the crows that hang around...and I am rather fond of snakes at least most of them, spiders too!

Cool!

This is the time of the year I start looking for tufted titmouse and flocks of gulls in the Walmart parking lot. Funny how birds change from season to season. Here's a double negative... I never don't see robins, bluejays, sparrows, grackel, chickadees, and cardinals. Those birds are ubiquitous here.

best story? parents lived in Hollywood apt with a small balcony...neighbors around the other side of the apt building put out whole peanuts.(in shell) the enterprising jay would fly around to my parents and bury the nuts in a planter they had...my father loved to leave the slider open as well as the screen...3 stories up you don't worry...well that was the day the jay started to check out the apt and scared my mom who had just gotten out of the shower and only in a towel when they met!! don't know who was more scared! needless to say that was the last time the screen was left open...
bet our late staying jays and robins are gone today, lol...had a dusting of snow in metro Detroit earlier...

We lost a lot of birds during the year of the bird flu. The crows and jays were hardest hit. I very rarely see either.

Robins and cardinals over-winter in the deeply cut creek bed alongside our house. The water almost never freezes completely, and it's warmer down there, with less wind chill. Deer will also break ice to drink, but we have fewer deer, too.

I have little regard for blue jays. I've witnessed too many attacking other birds and their nests -- in the midst of summer's plenty.