These western representatives of the family with brown backs and pale blues are far more retiring than the eastern Jays, seldom venturing away from forests on wide mountain-sides. Their mannerisms and calls are quite similar to those of the Blue Jay with individual touches of intonation.
NEST: usually in firs or bushes from ten to fifty feet up, built of sticks, moss, and grass cemented with mud, quite a substantial structure.
EGGS: 3–5; pale blue-green spotted and blotched all over with brown and lavender. This description holds for following subspecies.
Coniferous forests of Pacific coast from Cook Inlet south to Puget Sound.
Both slopes of Sierra Nevada mountains south to lower California.
A 100-foot tree distributed in narrow belt from Pescadero to San Simeon Bay, California.