JAX-RS / Jersey how to customize error handling?

I’m learning JAX-RS (aka, JSR-311) using Jersey. I’ve successfuly created a Root Resource and am playing around with parameters:

@Path("/hello")
public class HelloWorldResource {

    @GET
    @Produces("text/html")
    public String get(
        @QueryParam("name") String name,
        @QueryParam("birthDate") Date birthDate) {

         // Return a greeting with the name and age
    }
}

This works great, and handles any format in the current locale which is understood by the Date(String) constructor (like YYYY/mm/dd and mm/dd/YYYY). But if I supply a value which is invalid or not understood, I get a 404 response.

For example:

GET /hello?name=Mark&birthDate=X

404 Not Found

How can I customize this behavior? Maybe a different response code (probably “400 Bad Request”)? What about logging an error? Maybe add a description of the problem (“bad date format”) in a custom header to aid troubleshooting? Or return a whole Error response with details, along with a 5xx status code?

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