Azure-hooded Jay
Cyanolyca cucullata
Medium-sized, overall blue jay of humid evergreen and pine-evergreen forest in mountains. Usually travels in pairs or small groups, often in association with other jays (including Unicolored), orioles, and toucanets. Forages at all levels, often well hidden in vegetation. Plumage dark blue overall with blacker face and throat bordered by white-framed, azure-blue cap. Juvenile has duller blue cap without white border.
Identification
The azure-hooded jay ranges in length from 11 to 12 inches (28 to 30 cm), and it tends to weigh 3.52 ounces (100 g). Its large size and frame help the bird manage the large amount of flying it does. The adult is dark blue with black on the head and upper chest, while the rear of the crown and nape, or back of the neck, are sky blue with a white border. The legs and bill are black and the eyes are dark red. Both sexes are similar in appearance. Juveniles are duller than adults and their sky blue hood does not possess the white bordering.<p>Its voice has been described as a loud and bright eihnk-eihnk that is typically repeated four to five times. It is also known to repeat a nasal ehr-ehn or eh’enk noise twice and give off a low, gruff, hard cheh-r. The alarm and flock-social calls of this species, characterized as a reek! sound, are "nasal, querulous, and upwardly or double inflected."
Taxonomy
The species was first described by the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway in 1885. Its specific epithet, cucullata, is the Latin word for "hooded". Its closest relative is the beautiful jay (C. pulchra) of Colombia and Ecuador; in his 1934 study, Hellmayr treated these species as conspecific. Phylogenetic analysis published in 2009 confirmed the close relationship between the two species; Bonaccorso speculates that the geographic (and subsequent genetic) separation between these species and others in the genus Cyanolyca may have been initiated by the formation of the Río Cauca Valley in western Colombia.<p>The azure-hooded jay has four subspecies. Cyanolyca cucullata mitrata is found in eastern Mexico, from San Luis Potosí to north central Oaxaca. This subspecies was initially treated as a separate species by Ridgway, but it was later merged into the azure-hooded jay. C. c. guatemalae ranges from southern Mexico in Chiapas to central Guatemala. C. c. hondurensis resides in western Honduras. C. c. cucullata, the nominate subspecies, is found in Costa Rica and western Panama.
- Scientific name
- Cyanolyca cucullata
- Authority
- (Ridgway, 1885)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Corvidae
- Genus
- Cyanolyca
Range and habitat
This species is known from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, southeastern Mexico, and western Panama. It lives in humid evergreen forests that are sometimes interspersed with pine trees. It can be found at the edges of these forests typically in the middle and higher levels within these trees. It is also normally found only where cloud forest is uninterrupted.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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