Bluejays are known for their intelligence and complex behaviors. They are part of the Corvidae family, which includes some of the most intelligent bird species like crows, ravens, and magpies. Bluejays have a large brain relative to their body size and exhibit behaviors associated with higher intelligence such as tool use, social learning, caching and retrieving food, mimicry, and deception.
Tool Use
Bluejays are one of the few species of birds known to use tools. They have been observed modifying twigs and leaves into “rakes” to drag food closer to them. For example, bluejays may hold a leaf stem or twig in their beak and drag it through a pile of seeds to gather them in one place. This demonstrates an ability to conceptualize an object as a tool to accomplish a goal. Tool use is associated with advanced cognitive skills and is rare in the animal kingdom.
Social Learning
Studies have shown that bluejays are capable of social learning, meaning they can observe others and acquire new behaviors and information. In lab experiments, bluejays have been able to learn behaviors like pecking a button to get food by watching conspecifics complete the action. They’ve also been shown to be able to observe where others cache food and find those caches later on their own. This cultural transmission of knowledge in the wild helps bluejays adapt and survive more successfully.
Caching and Retrieving Food
Bluejays cache, or hideaway, over 3,000 acorns each fall to save for later consumption. They rely on excellent spatial memory to be able to retrieve these caches of food, sometimes months later, for survival over the winter. Their hippocampi, the part of the brain critical for memory formation, are enlarged compared to other birds. One study found bluejays could remember the location of caches up to 28 days later with remarkable accuracy. Their ability to create hundreds of food caches and retrieve them efficiently months later demonstrates their impressive intellect.
Mimicry
Bluejays are excellent mimics and can copy the calls and songs of over 20 other bird species like hawks, eagles, and chickadees. Some theorize they may mimic other birds to deceive competitors or even prey. For example, mimicking a hawk call may frighten smaller birds away from a food source, allowing the bluejay to fly in and access the food. Whatever the purpose, their vocal mimicry ability shows that bluejays have advanced auditory processing skills and neural control over their vocalizations.
Deception
Bluejays exhibit tactical deception, meaning they are able to manipulate the behavior of others by altering their own behaviors. For example, bluejays will sometimes use alarm calls in the absence of danger to frighten competitors away from food sources. They also engage in “false feather displays” where they puff up their crown feathers to appear injured or susceptible to attack when a predator approaches. This may cause the predator to redirect its attention towards easier prey. These acts of deception demonstrate advanced cognitive skills like perspective-taking and theory of mind – the ability to attribute mental states to others.
Innovative Foraging
Bluejays are constantly innovating new foraging techniques such as breading – picking up crumbs from picnic areas, tailing people to grab discarded food, or even stealing whole sandwiches. Some bluejays have learned to hover at backyard feeders and pick off one sunflower seed at a time. Their flexible, innovative behaviors help them take advantage of new food sources efficiently.
Complex Communication
Bluejays have a large repertoire of over 20 different calls ranging from soft, gurgling notes to loud, screaming alarm calls. The nuanced vocalizations are used for complex social communication. Certain calls convey information about food sources, alert others to danger, mark territory, or signal breeding readiness. Bluejays even vary their calls regionally across different dialects much like human languages vary geographically. The complexity of their communication denotes high orders of intelligence.
Play Behavior
Young bluejays exhibit extensive play behavior by wrestling, sliding down slopes, hanging upside down, and manipulating objects. Play is thought to allow individuals to build physical, cognitive and social skills. The bluejay’s long developmental period before reaching independence also promotes learning. Their extensive play behavior in youth is associated with intelligence and behavioral flexibility later in life.
Self-Recognition
A few studies provide some evidence that bluejays may be capable of self-recognition or self-awareness. In lab experiments where a blue spot was placed on a bluejay’s neck, the bird tried to scratch or remove the spot while looking in a mirror, suggesting it understood the reflection was its own image. More research is needed, but this provides tentative evidence that bluejays may have some capacity for self-recognition.
Problem-Solving Skills
Bluejays showcase their intelligence through problem-solving skills in the lab and field. For example, bluejays that could not reach hanging food inside a tube figure out they could access it by grabbing cords and pulling the food within reach. Bluejays have also demonstrated an understanding analogies and object relationships in experiments with the ability to infer that if object A is greater than object B, and object B is greater than object C, then A is greater than C. Their ability to understand analogies and object relationships requires advanced cognitive skills.
Observational Learning
Bluejays possess observational learning skills or the ability to acquire new information and behaviors simply by observing others. In one lab study, bluejays that observed a conspecific feeding from a tray of food through a peephole, gained the skill to then access the food themselves. Their adeptness at observational learning in the lab likely helps them learn foraging innovations and other novel behaviors from flock-mates in the wild.
Numerical Competence
Research indicates that bluejays have some numerical competence – the ability to differentiate between quantities and choose the larger amount. When presented with two arrays of food that differed in number, bluejays were able to reliably choose the larger, more rewarded option up to a quantity of eight. Though basic, numerical skills like these are important cognitive capacities that aid survival.
Adaptive Behavioral Flexibility
A key component of intelligence is behavioral flexibility or the ability to adaptably respond to changing environments and situations. Bluejays exhibit this through their ability to create flexible foraging strategies, adjust food caching behaviors, and rapidly learn from other jays. Their behavioral flexibility allows them to thrive in diverse habitats from forests to backyards. This adaptability points to their cognitive complexity.
Spatial Memory & Navigation
As mentioned earlier, bluejays possess excellent spatial memory and navigation skills that allow them to cache and retrieve thousands of seeds every year across wide territories. Their spatial mapping abilities also enable innovative behaviors like pilfering caches made by other jays. Their impressive spatial cognition is supported by specialized neurons in the hippocampus called place cells that help encode memories of physical locations.
Reasoning & Insight
Bluejays are capable of reasoning and gaining conceptual insight about their environment. For example, bluejays that observed others fail at obtaining hanging food rewards understood not only that the task was impossible, but that the cords themselves were unhelpful. Their ability to infer causal relationships like this requires advanced cognitive skills like reasoning and insight.
Conclusion
In summary, bluejays exhibit many complex behaviors associated with intelligence such as tool use, social learning, food caching, mimicry, deception, innovative foraging, play behavior, self-recognition, problem-solving skills, observational learning, numerical competence, behavioral flexibility, spatial memory, reasoning, and insight. While difficult to quantify, their relative brain size, neural development, and performance on cognitive tests also suggest bluejays possess intelligence comparable to other highly intelligent corvids like crows and ravens. Their sophisticated mental capacities likely evolved to help bluejays adapt and thrive in challenging environments. So next time you see a bluejay, take a moment to appreciate the complex cognition behind its behaviors and vocalizations!