Brown Jay

About the Brown Jay

The Brown Jay is the largest jay in North America, a big chocolate-brown bird with a pale belly, a long tail, and a loud, explosive call. Young birds show a yellow bill and eye-ring that darken with age.

Brown Jays live in noisy family flocks that move single file through woodland edges and tall riverbank brush, often following one another across openings. They are omnivores, taking insects, fruit, seeds, eggs, and small vertebrates, and older offspring commonly help the breeding pair feed nestlings.

The species is mainly Mexican and Central American. In the United States it occurs only in the woodlands along the Rio Grande in far South Texas, where it is rare and irregular - some years present, some years absent entirely.