Happy Thought for 17 October 2025

Have a Happy Thought:

(Before I go too far, do you ever have those times in your life when you just keep seeing the same thing over and over? Like you learn a new word, and then that word appears in a book you're reading, a tv show you're watching, and in a random-facts quiz later that week? Yeah, that's been my life lately. Which is why there is some cross-over between this week's topic and that from just a few weeks ago.)

The world around us, especially the living world, is constantly surprising us. We humans continue to learn new things all the time (thanks, science!), and then of course there is the fact that "Life, uh, finds a way" to deal with an ever-changing environment.

The latest example of this? Two species of jay birds, whose ancestors have not crossed paths in about 7 million years, have recently been finding themselves in the same place. Green jays are a tropical bird, living in the central Americas. 

Image: Green Jay (Cyanocorax yncas) Photo by Green Jay | Andy Morffew | Flickr


Blue jays, meanwhile, evolved in the more northern latitudes of the Eastern US and Canada. 

Image: Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata Welland, ON Canada . Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147444@N03/2087336784/ 

Warming weather has let the green jays move further north, and the blue jays move further west until... 

Well, may I introduce you to a grue jay

A rare hybrid bird identified in a suburb of San Antonio, Texas is the result of mating between a male blue jay and a female green jay. Photo credit: Brian Stokes.

It's not just how this bird looks, scientists have taken a blood sample (the bird is ok, don't worry) and confirmed that this is indeed a hybrid between the two long-separated bird species.


For all you birders out there - another one to add to your life list :)


Thanks to Popular Science for bringing us news of this new bird!








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