Jay
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Jay
Bird
Also known as: Eurasian Jay
A shy, colourful woodland crow with a soft pinkish-brown body and a dazzling flash of electric-blue on its wings. It is famous for hoarding acorns — burying thousands each autumn and, by forgetting a few, planting the oak woods of tomorrow.
💡 Fun Facts
- Every autumn a single jay buries thousands of acorns, then uses an astonishing memory to find them again months later — and the ones it forgets grow into new oak trees, so jays quietly plant whole woodlands.
- Listen for its loud, harsh, screeching chatter ringing through the trees — such a noisy voice that it earned the bird its Latin name, garrulus.
- Though it's a shy member of the clever crow family, the jay hides a surprise: a dazzling flash of electric-blue barred feathers on its wings, set against a soft pinkish-brown body.
Name Story
Garrulus glandarius
means “the chattering acorn-gatherer”
What does its name mean?
- Garrulus — chattering, noisyLatin garrulus ‘chattering, babbling’ — the root of our word ‘garrulous’
- glandarius — of acornsLatin glans / glandis ‘acorn’
The jay’s first name comes from its voice: a loud, chattering, screechy call that gives away this shy bird long before you see it. Its second name means ‘of acorns’, celebrating the jay’s great love of them — it buries acorns by the thousand and so plants whole oak woods, which is exactly why we call it the acorn-gatherer.