Jays

Jays are medium sized passerines that are part of the Corvidae family. They come in a variety of colors and are found through out the world. In North America we have 10 different types of jays in 5 different genus. Probably the most common of the North American jays is the blue jay. Blue jays are found in the eastern half of North America. They share the Cyanocitta genus with the Stellar's jay which is found in parts of western North America.
The genus Aphelocoma consists of three types of scrub jay as well as the Mexican jay. The western scrub-jay, pictured above is the most common scrub jay. It is found in the south western United States and parts of Mexico. The Florida scrub-jay is found only in Florida and the island scrub-jay is found on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California.
Gray Jays are the only member of the Perisoreus genus found in North America. Their range includes Canada, Alaska, the northern United States and the Rocky Mountains. Living in the north these birds will often cache food to help them survive the winter months. They are very intelligent birds, as are most members of the Corvidae family, and very inquisitive. They are often referred to by the nickname camp robber.
The green jay is a member of the genus Cyanocorax. Their range includes parts of south eastern Texas and eastern Mexico. They can also be found in Central America and northwestern South America. In North America the only other jay found with in the same range as the green jay is the brown jay. Both are in the genus Cyanocorax but it is very easy to distinguish between them since the green jay is very colorful and the brown jay is mostly brown.

Christmas Eve at Carpenter Nature Center

Since I was in the neighborhood I decided to stop in at Carpenter Nature Center after I left Douglas Point on Monday. Even though they were in the process of snow blowing all of the side walks up by the buildings there was still a lot of activity. I saw most of the typical Minnesota winter birds like:

black-capped chickadee

dark-eyed junco

blue jay

and red-bellied woodpecker

There were quite a few finches around. I was hoping that one of them might be a purple finch but I had no such luck. The house finchs did look nice though with all the snow and red branches.

Midwest Birding Symposium-Mississippi River Eco Cruise

Saturday morning's field trip was a cruise up the Mississippi backwaters. We took a motor coach to Rock Creek Marina where we boarded the pontoon boat the Blue Goose, operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We traveled a short way up one of the tributaries and then stopped to observe birds in the thick canopy near the shoreline. We counted 74 different species during the outing but because of the lighting, distance, motion, and the size of many of the birds I was not able to get as many good shots as I would have liked. I was able to get some shots of this swainson's thrush that came down to the shore line.A northern flicker sat for a few minutes on an exposed branch and let me get some shots.I was able to capture a fly over by a blue jay.A green heron was pretending to be invisiblewhile this great blue heron was playing king of the hill, sitting on a large bush up high on the bank.

After a couple hours people where getting cold so we went back to the dock and loaded back on the bus. Since we still had some time we stopped at a lock and damn on our way back to the Quad Cities. We were informed that this was the location where a pair of harlequin ducks had spent a good deal of time back in February, to the delight of the local birders.

Unfortunately the harlequins were long gone but a fly over by a red tail did give me an opportunity to get another good shot.

Birding at Vince Shute

While watching the bears up at the Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary we also got a chance to do a little birding. There were quite a few bids who where taking advantage of the food that was put out for the bears. The blue jays were the biggest culprits.
There were about a dozen blue jays in the area who would sneak in and share in the bears meal.Besides the blue jays there were also a lot of goldfinch and a couple white-breasted nuthatch that were getting in on the action. There were also some birds who were around but did not care about bear food. Like ruby-throated humming birds and this sapsucker.I believe this is a juvenile yellow-bellied sapsucker but it is hard to tell because it is missing the dark band that outlines the red on the chin.