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  Profile

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  In flight

Clever Corvids

Eurasian Jay

Garrulus glandarius

• epic
• 72 km/h
• Least Concern

Buries thousands of acorns each autumn and remembers most of them. Single-handedly replanting Europe's oak forests.

Population

24–46.2 million mature individuals globally (stable trend)

Habitat

Mixed woodland, especially with oaks; also parkland, gardens, and increasingly urban areas as forest habitat is lost

Fun fact

A single Eurasian Jay can cache several thousand acorns each autumn and, before humans planted oaks commercially, was a primary agent of oak dispersal across Europe, sometimes carrying acorns as far as 20 km.

Range

Western Europe and northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria) east through the Urals, Middle East, and Central Asia to Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan, plus parts of the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia (33 subspecies)

Diet

Omnivorous: acorns and other seeds/nuts (heavily cached in autumn), invertebrates, berries, and occasionally eggs, nestlings, small rodents, and bats

Size

0.345 m

Wingspan

0.55 m

Lifespan

16 years