All species › Passerines › Crows, jays and magpies › White-collared Jay
White-collared Jay | Cyanolyca viridicyanus
Witkraaggaai | Urraca de collar blanco | Gralha-de-colar-branco
The White-collared Jay is a dark violet-blue jay with a black mask and a narrow white line around the mask and throat, of montane forest on the eastern slope of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. It lives in pairs or small groups, often in mixed-species flocks. With Black-collared Jay and Turquoise Jay it forms a chain of closely related jays along the Andes.
Voice
Loud, clear calls, such as a repeated cheer, and hoarse, rasping series; groups are noisy but can also stay silent for long periods.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
32–34 cm, with a long tail. The plumage is deep violet to ultramarine blue, the crown paler and brighter blue. A black mask covers the forehead, lores and ear-coverts; a narrow white line borders the mask and the dark blue throat and continues as a narrow white collar across the upper breast. The bill, legs and iris are black. The sexes are alike; young birds are duller, with a less distinct white line.
Confusion species
Turquoise Jay Cyanolyca turcosa is much paler turquoise blue, with a whitish throat and a black breast band, and lives further north. Black-collared Jay Cyanolyca armillata has a black instead of a white collar and lives in Colombia and Ecuador. Green Jay Cyanocorax yncas is green and yellow and usually lives lower in the same forest.
Habitat
Humid montane forest and cloud forest on the eastern slope of the Andes, forest edges and woodland with bamboo in the understorey, at roughly 1800 to 3300 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.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Peru on the eastern slope of the Andes, from Amazonas and San Martín south to Puno. In Bolivia on the eastern slope in La Paz and Cochabamba. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the road through the cloud forest of Manu in Peru and along mountain roads in the Yungas of La Paz, where groups travel with mixed-species flocks.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally fairly common in continuous montane forest.
Scientific name
Cyanolyca viridicyanus | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1838)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1838 as Garrulus viridi-cyanus; 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 comes from Latin viridis, 'green', and cyaneus, 'blue', for the greenish-blue plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Yungas, La Paz, Bolivia.