The Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis), 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 (IUCN) 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

thumb|left|Subspecies P. c. capitalis, Grand Tetons, Wyoming

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.

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.

thumb|upright|Subspecies P. c. capitalis (left) and P. c. obscurus (right); illustration by [[John Gerrard Keulemans|Keulemans, 1877]]

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 (Colorado)" 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. 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.

  • 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. 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. is found in northern Quebec (Kuujjuaq, Whale River, and George River), throughout Labrador and Nova Scotia, and in southeastern Quebec (Mingan and Blanc-Sablon). It was described by Ridgway in 1882. this subspecies has more dark brown than grey upperparts.

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.

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;. 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.

The vast majority of Canada jays live where there is a strong presence of black spruce (Picea mariana), white spruce (P. glauca), Engelmann spruce (P. engelmannii), jack pine (Pinus banksiana), or lodgepole pine (P. contorta). 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 (Picea sitchensis). 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. small mammals including rodents, shrews, and juvenile bats, and the long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) in Whitehorse Bluff in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Canada jays have been seen landing on moose (Alces alces) to remove and eat engorged winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) 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. being taken more often from nests in trees rather than on the ground. The bolus is stored in bark crevices, under tufts of lichen, or among conifer needles. Cached items can be anything from carrion to bread crumbs. Canada jay remains have been recovered from the lairs of fisher (Pekania pennanti) and American marten (Martes americana). 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, the star Eta Ursae Majoris in the night sky was a Canada jay, Mikjaqoqwej. 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 travellers 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; 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 (animal)" 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 (Gavia immer), snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus), Canada goose (Branta canadensis) and black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus). 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.

Conservation

Canada jays are classified as least concern (LC) according to the IUCN Red List, Such warm temperatures may trigger spoilage of the perishable food items stored by Canada jays upon which success of late winter nesting partly depends.

References

Further reading

  • Madge, S. and H. Burn (1994). Crows and Jays: A Guide to the Crows, Jays and Magpies of the World. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.
  • Gray Jay Research in Algonquin Park – The Science Behind Algonquin's Animals