All species › Passerines › Crows, jays and magpies › Plush-crested Jay
Plush-crested Jay | Cyanocorax chrysops
Pluchekapgaai | Urraca de cresta alborotada | Gralha-picaça
The Plush-crested Jay is a violet-blue and creamy-white jay of the dry forests and lower Yungas of southern and eastern Bolivia. It owes its name to the short, velvety crest on the crown. Groups move noisily through the forest and also come into gardens and wooded farmland.
Voice
Varied: loud, hoarse calls such as chyoow and kyaa, clucking and clicking notes, and soft, chattering sounds within the group.
Recording: Fabrício Grigolin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
34–36 cm, with a heavy black bill and a long tail. The head is black, with a short, dense crest of velvety feathers on the crown, a pale blue spot above the eye that continues into a pale blue band on the nape, and a small blue spot below the eye. The throat and breast are black, the rest of the underparts creamy white to pale yellow. The back and wings are violet blue, the tail violet blue with a broad creamy-white tip. The iris is yellow, the legs black. The sexes are alike; young birds are duller, with a dark iris.
Confusion species
Curl-crested Jay Cyanocorax cristatellus of the far east of Bolivia has a tall, curled crest and a white distal half to the tail, with no blue spots by the eye. Purplish Jay Cyanocorax cyanomelas is uniform dull purplish brown, without creamy-white underparts. Violaceous Jay Cyanocorax violaceus lives further north, is uniform violet blue and has a dark iris.
Habitat
Dry forest, Chaco and Chiquitano woodland, the lower Yungas, gallery forest, forest edges and wooded farmland, also villages and parks, from the lowlands to about 1500 m. It eats insects, other invertebrates, eggs, small vertebrates, fruit and seeds. The nest is a cup of twigs in a tree; it often breeds cooperatively with helpers from the group.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the lowlands and on the lower eastern slope of the Andes in the south and east, including Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija and southern Cochabamba and Beni. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Paraguay, northern Argentina, Uruguay and southern and south-western Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the woods and parks around Santa Cruz de la Sierra and in the lower Yungas to the west, where groups move through the forest calling loudly.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Common and tolerant of partial deforestation.
Scientific name
Cyanocorax chrysops | (Vieillot, 1818)
Vieillot described the species in 1818 as Pica chrysops; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cyanocorax was introduced in 1826 by Boie. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek kuanos, 'dark blue', and korax, 'raven'. The species name comes from Greek khrusos, 'gold', and ōps, 'eye' or 'face', for the yellow eye and the yellow spot above it. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.