In Search of the Blue Jay

Many times in conversations about birds, people refer to seeing “Blue Jays”, and I end up correcting them saying that what we have here in the Northwest are Steller’s Jays or Western Scrub Jays, where on the East Coast they have Blue Jays.  However, this winter a Blue Jay has been reported by a good number of birders in the Bald Hill Park area of Corvallis.  This afternoon we hiked for an hour on a trail in the area with the hope of seeing this unusual bird.  In total we identified 15 different species of birds among which were a good number of Western Scrub Jays and one Steller’s Jay, both of which are indeed blue in color, but not our desired Blue Jay.