Eurasian jay mimicking birdsong (1 Viewer)

[01101001]

Yesterday I heard a jay make sweet sqeaky sounds as if it was imitating some songbird. I've heard jays make buzzardlike calls before, but that's a first. The mimicry was quite muffled, and I didn't see any other jays nearby, so I guess it didn't serve for communication. The bird repeated the sound every time it flew to a new perch while I was trying to get a decent recording. In a post written almost 7 years ago @Torchepot suggested that it could be seasonal, but that was in March, and it's October now, so I don't think so. Does anyonone know more about the reasons behind such behaviour? Perhaps the jay was practising (maybe in order to impress other jays in the future) or maybe it just did it for its own amusement?

 

[01101001]

I think it's called a 'subsong' in this case. A few useful links:
https://www.birdid.no/bird/eBook.php?specieID=1542
https://www.bird-research.jp/1_shiryo/koe/kakesu_110227_utsunomiya_hirano.mp3
https://xeno-canto.org/species/Garrulus-glandarius?query=type:subsong&view=3&pg=1

A breakdown by months (as per XenoCanto):
Jan (1) #
Feb (1) #
Mar (12) ############
Apr (3) ###
May (0)
Jun (1) #
Jul (0)
Aug (3) ###
Sep (9) #########
Oct (2) ##
Nov (0)
Dec (0)

 

[pbgrebe]

Your post reminded me of one of the coolest instances of mimicry in the wild that I’ve heard. It occurred in California and involved a Steller’s jay that mimicked the call of a red-tailed hawk (I jokingly referred to this individual as a red-tailed Steller’s jay). What was particularly intriguing about this was one of the circumstances in which I heard this jay voice this mimicked red-tail call. At the time, there was a small building where I generally started my work day early in the morning on which moths and some other insects perched on the wall around some porch lights and a few other lights situated on the building. Ever the opportunists, the jays and individuals of a few other avian species typically began their daily foraging by going to this building and picking these insects off the wall (in this case, the early bird caught the moth instead of the proverbial worm). On a number of occasions, it was during these early morning feeding periods that this jay voiced its red-tailed calls—and it gave the impression that it deliberately voiced these calls in order to scare the other birds away and thus reduce the competition vying for these moths. Of course, corvids in general are known for their intelligence so the possibility that this jay did make these calls with this intent does seem to be within the cognitive abilities of jays. Regardless of whether or not this was a deliberate strategy, it did tend to reduce the competition.

 

[01101001]

Steller's Jay... Yes, I've heard of it, and particularly when Merlin Bird ID didn't use to support voice recognition of European birds, and I could never figure out what was going on. Steller's Jay was a moniker for Common Reed Warbler when calling iirc.