Steller's Jays

Critter Chat - Episode 12 - The Steller’s Jay

The Steller’s Jay, the gregarious azure-feathered bird, is the focus on this episode of Critter Chat. Steller’s Jays are hard to miss - their “shek shek shek" call and perky personalities. They are our neighbors in the Sierra Nevada, but how well do we really know them? 

Steller’s Jays have long been regarded as a sentinel bird in the world of wildlife and native American culture. They “read the environment” like we might “read a room” and alert the wider world to dangers sometimes imitating hawks to communicate to other birds.

This episode features biologist, scientific illustrator and artist, Linda Tuttle Adams, who is highly regarded in the wildlife rescue world, her recent tome Baby Bird Identification, is the go-to manual for baby bird rescue. With bird nesting starting in March, she tells us about how Steller’s Jays make nests, how fledglings survive and other fascinating facts.

School teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students with teaching notes that include vocabulary words like “sentinel” and “altricial.”

See critterchat.org for more information. 

Critter Chat is written and produced by Marney Blair and Susan Brandt and edited with news director Claudio Mendonca at KVMR. Each episode features one species of the many critters that live in the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains. Critter Chat was recently awarded the 2024 Jody Fenimore Excellence in Public Affairs and Community Service Programming by KVMR.

Photo: Steller's Jay,  © Nigel Voaden, California, 2015, Macaulay Library