All species › Passerines › Crows, jays and magpies › Beautiful Jay
Beautiful Jay | Cyanolyca pulchra
Ornaatgaai | Urraca hermosa | Gralha-formosa
The Beautiful Jay is a small, deep blue jay of the wet montane forest on the Pacific slope of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador. It lives in pairs or small groups, often in mixed-species flocks, and usually keeps to the middle and upper levels of the forest. Of the Cyanolyca jays in the guide area it is the smallest and the only one without a distinct collar across the breast.
Voice
A dry, rasping series chek-chek-chek and harsher, hoarse calls; also soft, varied notes within the group. Pairs often call briefly before they come into view.
Recording: Iván Lau — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
27 cm, with a long tail. The crown and nape are silvery pale blue to whitish, sharply set off against a black mask over the forehead, lores and ear-coverts. The mantle is dark, dull purplish blue in the male, browner in the female. The wings and tail are bright blue, the underparts deep blue, the throat slightly more purplish. The bill, legs and iris are dark. Young birds are duller, with a less pale crown.
Confusion species
Turquoise Jay Cyanolyca turcosa is larger and paler turquoise blue, with a whitish throat and a narrow black breast band, and lives higher in the Andes. Black-collared Jay Cyanolyca armillata is larger and darker ultramarine blue, with a black collar, and lives mainly in the Central and Eastern Andes of Colombia and in the far north of Ecuador.
Habitat
Wet montane forest and cloud forest, also old secondary forest and forest edges, at roughly 900 to 2300 m. It forages in the middle and upper levels of the forest, among moss and epiphytes, for insects and other invertebrates, and also eats fruit. Little is known about its breeding.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia on the Pacific slope of the Western Andes, from Antioquia south to Nariño. In Ecuador on the western slope of the Andes in the north-west, south to about Pichincha. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In cloud forest on the western slope in north-western Ecuador, such as around Mindo, with mixed-species flocks in the middle canopy. Listen for the dry, rasping calls.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The species has a small range and is declining through the loss of forest on the Pacific slope of the Andes.
Scientific name
Cyanolyca pulchra | (Lawrence, 1876)
Lawrence described the species in 1876 as Cyanocitta pulchra; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cyanolyca was introduced in 1851 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Ancient Greek kuanos, 'dark blue', with lukos, a kind of crow (possibly the jackdaw) mentioned by Aristotle and Hesychius. The species name is Latin pulcher, meaning 'beautiful'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Quito, Ecuador.