part of the corvid family, blue jays are actually quite intelligent birds. they have a bit of a bad reputation for raiding the nests of other birds and feeding on the young but this apparently might not fully be true. nevertheless, they are omnivorous and do feed on smaller birds. on the flip side, they are able to make a wide variety of calls and can even imitate hawks. whether for selfish reasons or not, when blue jays detect a predatory, they make calls to indicate this and other birds within an earshot get the warning as well. people refer to their calls as jays, hence the name. they are the provincial bird of prince edward island and the mascot for a certain local baseball team. cyanocitta cristata in moleskine.