Canada jay

Appearance

The Canada jay is a relatively large songbird, though smaller than other jays. A typical adult Canada jay is between 25 and 33 cm long. Its wingspan is around 45 cm. It weighs about 65 to 70 g. Adults have medium grey back feathers with a lighter grey underside. Its head is mostly white with a dark grey or black nape and hood, with a short black beak and dark eyes. The long tail is medium grey with lighter tips. The legs and feet are black. The plumage is thick, providing insulation in the bird's cold native habitat. Like most corvids, Canada jays are not sexually dimorphic, but males are slightly larger than females. Juveniles are initially coloured very dark grey all over, gaining adult plumage after a first moult in July or August. The average lifespan of territory-owning Canada jays is eight years; the oldest known Canada jay banded and recaptured in the wild was at least 17 years old.

A variety of vocalizations are used and, like other corvids, Canada jays may mimic other bird species, especially predators. Calls include a whistled "quee-oo", and various clicks and chuckles. When predators are spotted, the bird announces a series of harsh clicks to signal a threat on the ground, or a series of repeated whistles to indicate a predator in the air.

Distribution

The Canada jay's range spans across northern North America, from northern Alaska east to Newfoundland and Labrador, and south to northern California, Idaho, Utah, east-central Arizona, north-central New Mexico, central Colorado, and southwestern South Dakota. It is also found in the northern reaches of the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, the Adirondacks in New York, and New England. The Canada jay may wander north of the breeding range. In winter it travels irregularly to northwestern Nebraska, central Minnesota, southeastern Wisconsin, central Michigan, southern Pennsylvania, central New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Fossil evidence indicates the Canada jay was found as far south as Tennessee during the last ice age.

The vast majority of Canada jays live where there is a strong presence of black spruce, white spruce, Engelmann spruce, jack pine, or lodgepole pine. Canada jays do not inhabit the snowy, coniferous, and therefore seemingly appropriate Sierra Nevada of California where no spruce occur. Nor do Canada jays live in lower elevations of coastal Alaska or British Columbia dominated by Sitka spruce. The key habitat requirements may be sufficiently cold temperatures to ensure successful storage of perishable food and tree bark with sufficiently pliable scales arranged in a shingle-like configuration that allows Canada jays to wedge food items easily up into dry, concealed storage locations. Storage may also be assisted by the antibacterial properties of the bark and foliage of boreal tree species. An exception to this general picture may be the well-marked subspecies "P. c. obscurus". It lives right down to the coast from Washington to northern California in the absence of cold temperatures or the putatively necessary tree species.

Status

Canada jays are classified as least concern according to the IUCN Red List, having stable populations over a very large area of boreal and subalpine habitats only lightly occupied by humans. Significant human impacts may nevertheless occur through anthropogenic climate warming. Canada jays at the northern edges of their range may benefit from the extension of spruce stands out onto formerly treeless tundra. A study of a declining population at the southern end of the Canada jay's range linked the decline in reproductive success to warmer temperatures in preceding autumns. Such warm temperatures may trigger spoilage of the perishable food items stored by Canada jays upon which success of late winter nesting partly depends.

Habitat

The Canada jay's range spans across northern North America, from northern Alaska east to Newfoundland and Labrador, and south to northern California, Idaho, Utah, east-central Arizona, north-central New Mexico, central Colorado, and southwestern South Dakota. It is also found in the northern reaches of the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, the Adirondacks in New York, and New England. The Canada jay may wander north of the breeding range. In winter it travels irregularly to northwestern Nebraska, central Minnesota, southeastern Wisconsin, central Michigan, southern Pennsylvania, central New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Fossil evidence indicates the Canada jay was found as far south as Tennessee during the last ice age.

The vast majority of Canada jays live where there is a strong presence of black spruce, white spruce, Engelmann spruce, jack pine, or lodgepole pine. Canada jays do not inhabit the snowy, coniferous, and therefore seemingly appropriate Sierra Nevada of California where no spruce occur. Nor do Canada jays live in lower elevations of coastal Alaska or British Columbia dominated by Sitka spruce. The key habitat requirements may be sufficiently cold temperatures to ensure successful storage of perishable food and tree bark with sufficiently pliable scales arranged in a shingle-like configuration that allows Canada jays to wedge food items easily up into dry, concealed storage locations. Storage may also be assisted by the antibacterial properties of the bark and foliage of boreal tree species. An exception to this general picture may be the well-marked subspecies "P. c. obscurus". It lives right down to the coast from Washington to northern California in the absence of cold temperatures or the putatively necessary tree species.

Food

Canada jays are omnivorous. They hunt such prey as arthropods, small mammals including rodents, and nestling birds, and have even been recorded taking a magnolia warbler in flight. They have been reported to opportunistically hunt young amphibians such as the western chorus frog in Chambers Lake, Colorado, and the long-toed salamander in Whitehorse Bluff in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Canada jays have been seen landing on moose to remove and eat engorged winter ticks during April and May in Algonquin Provincial Park. Researchers also found a Canada jay nest containing a brooding female, three hatchlings, and three warm, engorged winter deer ticks. Because the ticks were too large for the hatchlings to eat, it was hypothesized that the ticks may have served as "hot water bottles", keeping hatchlings warm when parents were away from the nest.

Nestling birds are common prey, being taken more often from nests in trees rather than on the ground. Canada jays find them by moving from perch to perch and scanning surroundings. Avian nest predation by Canada jays is not necessarily higher in fragmented versus unfragmented forest. Evidence from studies in the Pacific Northwest suggest a moderate increase in nest predation in logged plots adjacent to mature conifer forest, which is the Canada jay's preferred habitat. Studies of nest predation by Canada jays in Quebec have shown that the birds prefer preying on nests in open forest with high prominence of jack pine, and greater rates of predation in riparian forest strips and green-tree retention stands versus clearcuts. This may be due to increased availability of perch sites for avian predators such as the Canada jay. Canada jays are suspected but not proven to prey on nests of the threatened marbled murrelet in coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest.

Carrion, fungi, fruits such as chokecherry, and seeds are also eaten. Two Canada jays were seen eating slime mold near Kennedy Hot Springs in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, Washington. This was the first report of any bird consuming slime mold in the field. Risk and energy expenditure are factors in food selection for the Canada jay, which selects food on the basis of profitability to maximize caloric intake. Increased handling, searching, or recognition times for a preferred food item lowers its profitability. Canada jays wrench, twist, and tug food apart, unlike other birds known as jays, which grasp and hammer their food. Canada jays commonly carry large food items to nearby trees to eat or process for storage, possibly as defense against large scavengers.

Predators

Several bird species prey on Canada jays, including great grey owls, northern hawk-owls, and Mexican spotted owls. Canada jay remains have been recovered from the lairs of fisher and American marten. Red squirrels eat Canada jay eggs. Canada jays alert each other to threats by whistling alarm notes, screaming, chattering, or imitating and/or mobbing predators.

Defense

Breeding Canada jays build nests and lay eggs in March or even February, when snow is deep in the boreal forest. Male Canada jays choose a nest site in a mature conifer tree; the nests are found most commonly in black spruce, with white spruce and balsam fir also used, in Ontario and Quebec. With the male taking a lead role in construction, nests are constructed with brittle dead twigs pulled off of trees, as well as bark strips and lichens. The cup is just large enough to contain the female and her eggs, measuring about 3 in wide and 2 in deep. Insulation is provided by cocoons of the forest tent caterpillar filling the interstitial spaces of the nest, and feathers used to line the cup. Nests are usually built on the southwestern side of a tree for solar warming and are usually less than one nest diameter from the trunk. Nest height is typically 8 to 30 ft above the ground. The average height of 264 nests surveyed in Algonquin Provincial Park was 16 ± 9.2 ft above ground.

A clutch consists of 2 to 5 light green-grey eggs with darker spots. The mean clutch sizes of Canada jays in Algonquin Provincial Park and La Verendrye Provincial Park were 3.03 and 3.18 eggs, respectively. Incubation is performed only by the female and lasts an average of 18.5 days. The female is fed on the nest by her partner, rarely moving from the nest during incubation and for several days after hatching.

Cultural

Found throughout Canada, the bird is popularly known by several colloquial names. One is "whisky jack", a variation on the name of Wisakedjak, a benevolent trickster and cultural hero in Cree, Algonquin, and Menominee mythologies. Alternate spellings for this name include "wesakechak", "wiskedjak", "whiskachon", and "wisakadjak". The Tlingit people of northwestern North America know it as "kooyéix" or "taatl'eeshdéi", "camp robber". According to the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia, each of the seven stars of the Big Dipper depicted a different bird; the star Eta Ursae Majoris in the night sky was a Canada jay, "Mikjaqoqwej"....hieroglyph snipped... In "anishinaabemowin", or the Ojibwe language, the bird is known as "gwiingwiishi". "... the whisky jack is revered by indigenous peoples as an omen of good fortune and a warning of danger. Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, an associate professor and acting head of the department of native studies at the University of Manitoba, explained why the mischievous yet wise grey jay is important to the Anishinaabe people. "To my people, the Anishinaabe, she is Gwiingwiishi", Sinclair said in a post published by Canadian Geographic magazine. "Gwiingwiishi is a great, wise teacher, and there is an old story that tells of her abilities to give gifts... Her lesson? That it is only in our bravery, resilience and commitments to one another that we can find growth", Sinclair said.

The Canada jay readily capitalizes on novel food sources, including taking advantage of man-made sources of food. To the frustration of trappers using baits to catch fur-bearing animals or early travelers trying to protect their winter food supplies, and to the delight of campers, bold Canada jays are known to approach humans for treats and to steal from unattended food stores. Canada jays do not change their feeding behaviour if watched by people; if they are able to link humans with food, they will not forget. A nesting female that had become accustomed to being fed by humans was reportedly able to be enticed to leave the nest during incubation and brooding. This behaviour has inspired a number of nicknames for the Canada jay, including "lumberjack", "meat-bird", "venison-hawk", "moose-bird", and "gorby", the last two popular in the northeastern United States. The origin of "gorby", also spelt "gorbey", is unclear but possibly derived from "gorb", which in Scottish Gaelic or Irish means "glutton" or "greedy " or in Scots or northern English "fledgling bird".
Superstition in Maine and New Brunswick relates how woodsmen would not harm gorbeys, believing that whatever they inflicted on the bird would be done to them. A folk tale circulated about a man who plucked a gorbey of its feathers and woke up the next morning having lost all his hair. Although the story was widespread in the early to mid-20th century, it does not appear to have been extant in 1902.

In January 2015, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society's magazine, "Canadian Geographic", announced a project to select a national bird for Canada, a designation which the country has never formally recognized. Dubbed the National Bird Project, the organization conducted an online poll inviting Canadians to vote for their favourite bird. The poll closed on 31 August 2016, and a panel of experts convened the following month to review the top five selections: the Canada jay, common loon, snowy owl, Canada goose and black-capped chickadee. The project announced on 16 November 2016 that the Canada jay was selected as the winner of the contest. Organizers hoped for the Canadian government to formally recognize the result as part of Canada's sesquicentennial celebrations in 2017; the Department of Canadian Heritage responded that no new official symbol proposals were being considered at the time.