Animals

Meet the ‘grue jay,’ a rare hybrid songbird

The cross between a blue and a green jay is a harbinger of environmental change

A bird with turquoise body feathers and a mostly black face.

This “grue jay," spotted in Texas, is a hybrid of a green jay and a blue jay.

Brian Stokes/University of Texas at Austin

By Sarah Boden

There was something strange about the turquoise-colored songbird flying around San Antonio in 2023. With its black-and-white tail bands and its jeering honk, it somewhat resembled and sounded like a blue jay.