Snow Jays

Day 131: Steller's Jay is absolutely stellar when ornamenting a snow-covered branch! They are also a reliable visitor to my feeders, and are here year-'round. That said, they are not the only jays who come calling. Occasionally, a few Grey Jays drift down from the upper elevations during the winter, and for the last couple of years, a Scrub Jay has shown up during the summer months. All members of the family of corvids, they may not be quite as smart as crows and ravens, but they're still some of the sharpest crayons in the box...in this case, one marked "sapphire blue." The colour is a trick of physics (refraction of light from the cellular structure of keratin in their feathers). This bird is actually just one more LBJ, the "little brown job" of birder parlance.