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The Blue-grey Tanager Thraupis episcopus, is a medium-sized Central and South American songbird of the Tanager family, Thraupidae. On Trinidad and Tobago this bird is called Blue Jean. It is a beautiful shade of blue.

The Blue-gray Tanager (Thraupis episcopus) is a medium-sized South American songbird of the tanager family, Thraupidae. Its range is from Mexico south to northeast Bolivia and northern Brazil, all of the Amazon Basin, except the very south. It has been introduced to Lima (Peru). On Trinidad and Tobago, this bird is called blue jean.

The blue-gray tanager is 6.3–7.1 in long and weighs 1.1–1.4 oz. Adults have a light bluish head and underparts, with darker blue upperparts and a shoulder patch colored a different hue of blue. The bill is short and quite thick. Sexes are similar, but the immature is much duller in plumage.

The song is a squeaky twittering, interspersed with tseee and tsuup call notes.

The breeding habitat is open woodland, cultivated areas and gardens. The blue-gray tanager lives mainly on fruit, but will also take some nectar and insects. This is a common, restless, noisy and confiding species, usually found in pairs, but sometimes small groups. It thrives around human habitation, and will take some cultivated fruit like papayas (Carica papaya).

One to three, usually two, dark-marked whitish to gray-green eggs are laid in a deep cup nest in a high tree fork or building crevice. Incubation by the female is 14 days with another 17 to fledging. The nest is sometimes parasitised by Molothrus cowbirds.

Two birds studied in the Parque Nacional de La Macarena of Colombia were infected with microfilariae, an undetermined Trypanosoma species, and another blood parasite that could not be identified. Two other birds, examined near Turbo (also in Colombia), did not have blood parasites.

Widespread and common throughout its large range.

The 100 series were photographed at Little tobago, Tobago. THe remaining photos were taken at the Peace Lode, Selva Verde, Arenal Observatory and Talari Mountain Lodge, Costa Rica.

Blue-gray Tanager