While the Blue Jay is very commonly found in North America, the Steller's Jay is the only crested Jay west of the Rocky Mountains. So, most of the time when you are in the California mountains and see this bird, it's a Steller's Jay. This one is unusual in that part of its upper beak has broken off. This kind of injury would be a death sentence to a less versatile, tiny seed eating bird but this Steller's Jay gets along pretty well

This image was captured with a Nikon D4 and 600 mm f/4 lens. The shallow depth of field works well to isolate the bird from a possibly distracting background.