Canada jay


The Canada jay, also known as the grey jay, gray jay, camp robber, moose bird, gorby, or whisky jack, is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae. It is found in boreal forests of North America, north to the tree line, and in the Rocky Mountains subalpine zone south to New Mexico and Arizona. A fairly large songbird, the Canada jay has pale grey underparts, darker grey upperparts, and a grey-white head with a darker grey nape. It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, a genus more closely related to the magpie genus Cyanopica than to other birds known as jays. The Canada jay itself has nine recognized subspecies.
Canada jays live year-round on permanent territories in coniferous forests, surviving in winter months on food cached throughout their territory in warmer periods. The birds form monogamous mating pairs, with pairs accompanied on their territories by a third juvenile from the previous season. Canada jays adapt to human activity in their territories and are known to approach humans for food, inspiring a list of colloquial names including "lumberjack", "camp robber", and "venison-hawk". The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the Canada jay a least-concern species, but populations in southern ranges may be affected adversely by global warming.
The species is associated with mythological figures of several First Nations cultures, including Wisakedjak, a benevolent figure whose name was anglicized to Whiskyjack. In 2016, an online poll and expert panel conducted by Canadian Geographic magazine selected the Canada jay as the national bird of Canada, although the designation is not formally recognized.

Taxonomy

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Canada jay in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Canada. He used the French name Le geay brun de Canada and the Latin Garralus canadensis fuscus. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognized by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the Canada jay. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Corvus canadensis and cited Brisson's work.
William Swainson named it Dysornithia brachyrhyncha in 1831. French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte assigned the Canada jay to the genus Perisoreus in 1838 in A geographical and comparative list of the birds of Europe and North America, along with the Siberian jay, P. infaustus. The Canada jay belongs to the crow and jay family Corvidae. However, it and the other members of its genus are not closely related to other birds known as jays; they are instead close to the genus Cyanopica, which contains the azure-winged magpie. Its relatives are native to Eurasia, and ancestors of the Canada jay are thought to have diverged from their Old World relatives and crossed Beringia into North America.
A 2012 genetic study revealed four clades across its range: a widespread "boreal" or "taiga" clade ranging from Alaska to Newfoundland and ranging south to the Black Hills of South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah in the west and New England in the east, a "transcascade" clade in eastern Washington and Oregon and ranging into Alberta and Montana, a "Rocky Mountains " clade from the southern Rocky Mountains, and a "Pacific" clade from coastal British Columbia, Washington, and southwestern Oregon. There was also a population of the boreal clade in the central Rocky Mountains between the Colorado and transcascade clades. Genetic dating suggests the Pacific clade diverged from the common ancestor of the other clades around three million years ago in the Late Pliocene.
The boreal clade is genetically diverse, suggesting that Canada jays retreated to multiple areas of milder climate during previous ice ages and recolonized the region in warmer times.
In 2018 the common name was changed from grey jay to Canada jay by the American Ornithological Society in a supplement to their Check-list of North American Birds. This change was also made in the online list of world birds maintained on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union by Frank Gill and David Donsker.
Nine subspecies are recognized:
  • Perisoreus canadensis albescens, also known as the Alberta jay, was described by American ornithologist James L. Peters in 1920. It ranges from northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta southeastward, east of the Rocky Mountains to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is an occasional visitor to northwestern Nebraska.
  • P. c. bicolor, described by American zoologist Alden H. Miller in 1933, is found in southeastern British Columbia, southwestern Alberta, eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, northern and central Idaho, and western Montana. Miller noted that the subspecies appeared to be a stable intermediate form between canadensis and capitalis. It was a similar size to subspecies canadensis, and had a wholly white head with a black nape. Its body markings resembled those of capitalis but its colouration resembled canadensis.
  • P. c. canadensis, the nominate subspecies, breeds from northern British Columbia east to Prince Edward Island, and south to the northern reaches of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, and New Hampshire, as well as northeastern New York and Maine. It winters at lower altitudes within the breeding range and south to southern Ontario and Massachusetts, and is an occasional visitor to central Minnesota, southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Pennsylvania, and central New York. P. c. canadensis is also a vagrant to northeastern Pennsylvania.
  • P. c. capitalis is found in the southern Rocky Mountains from eastern Idaho, south-central Montana, and western and southern Wyoming south through eastern Utah, and western and central Colorado, to east-central Arizona and north-central New Mexico. American naturalist Spencer Fullerton Baird described this subspecies in 1873. It has a wholly whitish head with a pale band on the back of the neck, and overall more ashy grey plumage. It is also generally larger than the nominate subspecies canadensis.
  • P. c. griseus occurs from southwestern British Columbia and Vancouver Island south through central Washington and central Oregon to the mountains of north-central and northeastern California. It was described by Robert Ridgway in 1899.
  • P. c. nigricapillus, also known as the Labrador jay, is found in northern Quebec, throughout Labrador and Nova Scotia, and in southeastern Quebec. It was described by Ridgway in 1882.
  • P. c. obscurus, described by Ridgway in 1874, is native to the coastal strip from Washington through western Oregon to northwestern California. Also known as the Oregon jay, this subspecies has more dark brown than grey upperparts.
  • P. c. pacificus ranges from central Alaska to northwestern Canada, including the Yukon and along the Mackenzie River. It was described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788.
  • P. c. sanfordi is found in Newfoundland. Harry C. Oberholser described it in 1914 from a specimen collected by a Dr. Sanford, whom he named it after. Oberholser reported that it was smaller and darker than the nominate race P. c. canadensis and more closely resembled P. c. nigricapillus.
Two additional subspecies were formerly recognized:
  • P. c. arcus was the name given to populations that are found in the Rainbow Mountains area and headwaters of the Dean and Bella Coola Rivers of the central Coast Ranges, British Columbia. Described by Miller in 1950, it is often recognized as P. c. obscurus.
  • P. c. barbouri was described by Allan Brooks in 1920. Abundant on Anticosti Island in eastern Quebec, this subspecies is significantly heavier but not larger than other Canada jay subspecies in Quebec, and does not appear to be genetically distinct from P. c. nigricapillus or other populations in Quebec.

    Description

The Canada jay is a relatively large songbird, though smaller than other jays. A typical adult Canada jay is between long. Its wingspan is around. It weighs about. 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 and 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.