Mexican Jay

About the Mexican Jay

A soft blue-gray jay of the mountain woodlands, the Mexican Jay lacks the crest and bold markings of other jays - dusky blue above, pale gray below, with a quiet elegance all its own. In the United States it is confined to a few sky-island ranges, and in Texas it means one place above all: the oak-and-pine canyons of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend.

Mexican Jays are intensely social, roving in noisy family flocks that forage together for acorns, pinyon nuts, and insects, caching food for leaner days. Curious and bold, they quickly learn where campers gather and will come remarkably close.

In Texas they are year-round residents of the Chisos, essentially the only spot in the state to find them, which makes them a prized target for visiting birders.

A note from behind the lens: their boldness in the Chisos Basin makes them one of the easier mountain specialties to photograph. Work the dappled light of the oaks, get low as a flock forages on the ground, and wait for one to hop onto a clean, sunlit branch.