With badgers and foxes and grey squirrels two a penny in the gardens of south Dublin, the new-born enthusiasm of one resident reaches out for ever more exotic species. He has seen, in his own garden, a peregrine falcon bring down a pigeon and, at its leisure, tear and consume it, despite the excited commentary of a family gathered at an open window not 30 feet from his feasting on the lawn below. Just now he has been reading about jays in an old book and wants to know if they can be found in his own area, not far from the Dodder and its neighbouring woodlands. Phoenix Park is probably his best bet, for the jay is said to inhabit broad-leaved or coniferous forest, outside of which he is seldom seen. The official booklet "Nature in the Phoenix Park" lists the jay as existing in its woodland areas. In a book first published in 1910 and intended mainly for young people, the authors see the jay as in the front rank of woodland birds for handsomeness. Handsome in a showy way - the black beak, the grey-black crest, the bright blue and jet-black bars of the small wing-feathers, the chestnut of the larger ones, the black tail and the soft, crushed-strawberry hue of chest and back. To which it might be added that the Irish jay has an even more colourful chest and back - bright pink into red.
The authors of the original book have an interesting note about the strength of this member of the crow family: "Its holding and pinching power seems marvellous in a bird of this size [Cabot measures it as 34-35 cm]. If a jay were to nip your finger in his beak, you would be held a fast prisoner and if you were to try to pull your finger away, you would run a risk of leaving part of it behind. At first this suggests enormous muscular strength; but we think it is due partly to the peculiar shape and setting of the beaks, which work rather on the principle of a pair of strong scissors; as they hold, they cut." A great eater of other birds' eggs, especially thrushes and pigeons, it seems. And, in England, anyway, the jay was frequently fancied as a cagebird. You would need a good-sized cage and you would have to be cautious in feeding it, with that scissors-like beak. But there are laws now about caging birds.