Seeing flashes of blue feathers while out hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains is fairly common. What type of blue bird you might be seeing will depend on the type of habitat you are hiking through.
Here are the four bird species in the Santa Cruz Mountains that are predominately blue.
California Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma californica)
- Size: About 11 inches long
- Coloring: Blue head, wings, and tail with a gray back and a white throat bordered by a blue necklace. Beaks, legs, and feet are black.
- Habitat: Chaparral, oak woodlands, and suburban areas.
- Behavior: Like most members of the corvid family, scrub-jays are bold and intelligent, often seen caching food like acorns.
The California scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica) is a very bold and loud bird most commonly seen in shrublands, oak woodlands, and chaparral areas in the Santa Cruz Mountains, mostly in lower elevation areas. Scrub-jays are also pretty opportunistic and will show up in backyards at feeders.
These songbirds have a loud screech sound as they fly from shrub to shrub. Scrub-jays are medium-sized birds with a lanky body and long tails.
California shrub jays mostly eat acorns so they are commonly found in open areas where oak trees are plentiful. Scrub-jays store a variety of food such as seed, nuts, and insects and use spatial memory to later retrieve the caches.
Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)
- Size: About 12 inches long
- Coloring: Deep blue body and wings with a black head and prominent crest and pale blue or white streaks on the forehead.
- Habitat: Coniferous and mixed forests, especially redwood and Douglas-fir areas at mid to higher elevations.
- Behavior: Noisy and bold, often forages in pairs or small groups. Mimics the calls of other birds and frequently visits campsites and forest edges.
The Bay Area’s other resident jay is the Steller’s Jay. These birds are the predominant crested jay species found west of the Rockies (although winter backyard feeders has allowed the blue jay to expand its range westward since the 1960s).
Steller’s jays are most commonly found in dense evergreen forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains where they can be heard raucously calling and flying rapidly between trees. These jays are omnivorous. While their diet is mostly nuts, seeds, and berries, Steller’s jays will also eat invertebrates, eggs, small rodents, and nestlings.
Western bluebird (Sialia mexicana)
- Size: About 7 inches long
- Coloring: Males have a vivid blue head and back with a rusty orange chest and flanks. Females are more muted in tone, with grayish-blue wings and a light orange breast.
- Habitat: Prefers open woodlands, grasslands with scattered trees, and forest edges.
- Behavior: Often seen perched on fences or low branches, scanning for insects. They nest in cavities and will readily use nest boxes.
Western bluebirds are most commonly seen in open space preserves with open grassland and wooded areas. Year round residents in the Santa Cruz Mountains, western bluebirds are most prominently seen in the springtime.
Lazuli bunting (Passerina amoena)
- Size: About 5.5 inches long
- Coloring: Males have a bright turquoise-blue head and back, a white belly, and a rusty-orange breast band. Females are pale brown with subtle blue tinges on the wings and tail.
- Habitat: Open brushy hillsides and riparian areas with dense shrubs.
- Behavior: Often perches prominently while singing in spring and summer.
The smallest of the predominately blue feathered birds found in the Santa Cruz Mountain area, male lazuli buntings are also boldly colored. Lazuli buntings can be seen singing from perches at the tops of bushes at preserves like Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve with significant amounts of grassland areas. Lazuli buntings mostly feed on seeds and insects.
Lazuli buntings are the only migratory blue bird in the Santa Cruz Mountains. These small songbirds overwinter in southern Arizona and Mexico starting in the fall. Lazuli buntings are a summer visitor to the Northern California area from April into September.
