A great post, and I absolutely adore all jays! But you triggered one of my (and many fellow Pacific Northwest birders’) pet peeves! While it is truly a stellar bird, the proper name of this black-and-blue denizen of our northwest forests is Steller’s Jay, named after the German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (10 March 1709 – 14 November 1746). Steller participated in the Great Northern Expedition (1733–1743), which explored the North Pacific region (Kamchatka and the Bering Sea). Other animals that bear his name include the (sadly extinct) Steller’s Sea Cow, the Steller’s Eider, Steller’s Sea Eagle, and Steller’s Sea Lion.
The beautiful (albeit noisy) Steller’s Jays grace my Western Oregon backyard almost year-round, devouring ridiculous amounts of birdseed and peanuts.
On a separate note, I’m always amazed at how different the eastern subspecies of the Eurasian Jay look from their Western European counterpart (a bird I am very familiar with from my younger days in my native Germany, before I emigrated to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest). I’ve always wondered if there is more than one species involved in the Garrulus glandarius complex.
Hello Hendrik, you were, of course, right about Steller’s. I corrected that. Being a German myself (though living in China), I have no good excuse for this mistake.
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Peter Penning
August 3, 2026 at 9:13 am
The Eurasian Jay used to be called Vlaamse Gaai in Dutch. The Flemish Jay… Naming a bird residing on the largest continent on the planet after a part of a tiny country is ironic.
A great post, and I absolutely adore all jays! But you triggered one of my (and many fellow Pacific Northwest birders’) pet peeves! While it is truly a stellar bird, the proper name of this black-and-blue denizen of our northwest forests is Steller’s Jay, named after the German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (10 March 1709 – 14 November 1746). Steller participated in the Great Northern Expedition (1733–1743), which explored the North Pacific region (Kamchatka and the Bering Sea). Other animals that bear his name include the (sadly extinct) Steller’s Sea Cow, the Steller’s Eider, Steller’s Sea Eagle, and Steller’s Sea Lion.
The beautiful (albeit noisy) Steller’s Jays grace my Western Oregon backyard almost year-round, devouring ridiculous amounts of birdseed and peanuts.
On a separate note, I’m always amazed at how different the eastern subspecies of the Eurasian Jay look from their Western European counterpart (a bird I am very familiar with from my younger days in my native Germany, before I emigrated to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest). I’ve always wondered if there is more than one species involved in the Garrulus glandarius complex.
Hello Hendrik, you were, of course, right about Steller’s. I corrected that. Being a German myself (though living in China), I have no good excuse for this mistake.
The Eurasian Jay used to be called Vlaamse Gaai in Dutch. The Flemish Jay… Naming a bird residing on the largest continent on the planet after a part of a tiny country is ironic.
Not a very enlightening comment but the Western Scrub Jay is very cute. I have seen this bird but don’t remember it looking like this.