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Found with head protruding out of a roadside drain on the driveway in torrential rain. Cairns FNQ. 2 metre sub-adult male.
Doug Harrop Photography • October 6, 1984
Union Pacific 6908 leads the WPV through Weber Canyon west of Gateway, Utah.
Found with head protruding out of a roadside drain on the driveway in torrential rain. Cairns FNQ. 2 metre sub-adult male.
A common enough bird in the neighborhood, but for some reason not a frequent visitor to the yard. This one has been coming around a fair bit, lately, though. In other notes, there are still a lot of goldfinches, and they've been joined by a large number of golden-crowned sparrows and an increased number of siskins. There have been a couple of townsend warblers, some golden-crowned kinglets, a ruby-crowned kinglet, the first house finch since summer, and all of the usual suspects. California/scrub jay, backyard Olympia.
Note (October 20): I just saw the first morning dove in the yard in the last ten years or so. They're fairly common in the neighborhood, but I think my yard has grown too enclosed for them to feel comfortable. It's the only one of my fifty-six confirmed bird species in the yard that I've never got a good photo of.
nice to find the scrub jay on my first day to search for it, The light was so poor in the woods, I didn't realize I had found it until I put it onto computer
Fall of 2022 went by so fast I was only able to capture a few images. This turned out to be one of my favorites. This scrub pine standing tall in the middle of a bright contrast of dogwood, oak, and the likes while they put on their best fall show.
I think this is the first time I have seen this Jay since they changed it's name from Western Scrub Jay to California Scrub Jay.
I got a message letting me know that one had been spotted in the northwest corner of the Aldergrove Athletic Park. Unfortunately when I arrived it was foggy but I did manage to spot it fairly quickly and I was able to photograph it until some dog walker's animals started barking and the California Scrub Jay fled.
Not so much a rare bird as an uncommon one. I have seen one every year for the last 4 years in the lower mainland. I suspect they use to live in this area but got driven out by other birds and development.
One of my favorite birds in terms of color, feather patterns, and behavior has been the Scrub Jay for at least 15 years. If you want any chance at photographing this bird, learn about its behavior and, any time you see a jay with an acorn, look for the squirrel that just had it stolen from him. Then, watch the caching and digging up that follows.
My first two fairly good shots were at Point Lobos on the central California coast, and Sequoia in the south central part of California. Both were juveniles, though this one would have become a full adult in a month or so. From 2008 until 2011, I actively sought the Scrub Jay because I thought it was, although very different, second only to the Blue jay of my youth.
Meanwhile, the colors of this jay can be a startling blue or gray-blue and, when a juvenile, the grey can be difficult to capture along with the demarcation between the blue and gray on the back. But the feature I've always liked is the "ruff" or "necklace" of wonderful feathers. (See below.) As with most corvids, this bird looks terrible when moulting! (The Florida Scrub Jay is quite a bit lighter than the west coast species.)
Seven species of Aphelocoma are generally recognized at the present time. They are believed to have evolved in the Pleistocene, and the Florida scrub jay is known to have been recognizably distinct and present in its current range for at least 2 million years. The inland, coastal, and Santa Cruz island populations of the (former) western scrub-jay are now considered three separate species: Woodhouse's, the California and the island scrub jays. Two different populations of the Mexican jay might similarly represent two separate species.
My old scrub jay buddy from Oregon. I miss this guy since I moved to California. He really loved my peanuts.
This wonderful woman feeds the Jays at the park. I took some shots of them.
California Western Scrub-Jay
Aphelocoma californica
Member of Nature’s Spirit
Good Stewards of Nature
Patricia Ware Bird Photography
© 2017 Patricia Ware - All Rights Reserved
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Rich azure blue and gray above, with a clean, pale underside broken up by a blue necklace. In birds, the color blue depends on lighting, so California Scrub-Jays can also look simply dark. Assertive, vocal, and inquisitive. You’ll often notice scrub-jays silhouetted high in trees, on wires, or on posts where they act as lookouts. Los Penasquitos Canyon Reserve, San Diego, California, USA
This bird, though beautiful, terrorizes the other birds in its neighborhood. The Scrub Jay eats the eggs and the young of other species.