Gray Jay

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.

Five Stars for Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter

Last month I had the opportunity to do a review of Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter. My friends over at Wild Bird Unlimited were nice enough to send me a jar of the Bark Butter as well as a Bark Butter Feeder to try out. I hung the feeder at my house and it has attracted quite a few chickadees and a couple of woodpeckers, at least that I have seen.

A couple of weeks back, when I had the opportunity to head up to the Sax Zim Bog to do some birding, I decided to bring the Bark Butter with. I wanted to test out a couple of things. I wanted to see how well the Bark Butter worked when it was applied directly to the tree and I wanted to see how well it would attract some of the northern specialties that are not very common in the U.S.

When I arrived at the bog I headed over to Admiral Ave to check out the feeding station located there. At the feeding station there was mainly common redpoll and black-capped chickadee. So I went up and spread some Bark Butter on several of the tree branches. Since redpoll are seed eaters they did not pay much attention to the Bark Butter but the black-capped chickadees began to go to the Bark Butter almost immediately after I left the feeding area.

I was not surprised that the black-capped chickadee were eating the Bark Butter, since they had been eating at home too, but I was hoping that one of the northern specialties would show up so I could see how well it would work on some less common birds. Soon a red-breasted nuthatch showed up and began to eat at the Bark Butter. I had white breasted nuthatch that had been on the feeder back home but we don't see red-breasted nuthatch too often in the southern portions of the state.

After watching and photographing the black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatch, redpolls and the single pine grosbeak I got really excited because a pair of boreal chickadees showed up. Boreal chickadees are usually found up in the boreal forests of Canada but a few migrate south during the winter and the Admiral feeder in Sax Zim Bog is the best place in Minnesota to have a chance to see them. I was hoping that there were still a few boreals around because I wanted to see how good that the Bark Butter would be for attracting them. Just like their cousin the black-capped, the boreal chickadees went right for the Bark Butter.

The boreal chickadees only stayed for a short time, as usual, eating their fill of Bark Butter and then disappeared back into the bog. As I was waiting for them to return, the seem to return to the feeders every hour or so, gray jays began to appear and a feeding frenzy began. The jays would eat a large chunk of Bark Butter and then grab another large chunk and fly away. Gray jays, sometimes reffered to as camp robbers, are known for caching food. This helps them to survive times when food is scarce.

Despite the fact that there was several different types of suet at the feeding station, and someone had even spread some peanut butter on one of the branches the jays, chickadees and nuthatch all kept going right after the Bark Butter. When I moved to the feeding station on Arkola there was only one gray jay in the area, it was in the trees across the street from the feeders. I decided to give that lonely guy some Bark Butter and with in a minute suddenly 15 gray jays appeared. This experience has certainly sold me on Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter. I will give it a 5 stars out of 5 and definitely recommend it if you are looking to attract birds that normally eat suet or other types of protein. I know that were some happy birds up in the bog that day and a happy Ecobirder who got a lot of great pics.

A Day in the Sax Zim Bog

For the past month I have been tyring to get back up to the Sax Zim Bog area to take some pics. I usually try and get up there a couple of times each winter because it is one of the best places around to see some of the species that usually live up in the boreal forests of Canada. I made my first trip up in January for the Brrrrdathon but because of weather and schedule I was not able to make it back up until last week. Since I had a vacation day that I had to burn I decided to take off last Thursday and head north.The weather on Thursday turned out to be quite nice. Except for some clouds around noon, the skies were pretty clear with temps up into the 20s. My first stop when I arrived was to the feeding station on Admiral Ave. I have always found this to be a great location for finding many of the wintering passerines. On this trip the feeders were dominated number wise by common redpoll. When I was up in January the only place that I found redpolls was at some of the feeders in the Meadowlands but on this trip they seemed to be everywhere. A couple of rare hoary redpolls have also been reported but I did not see any redpoll that appeared like it might be a hoary.

In contrast to the redpoll numbers were the numbers of pine grosbeak. In January there were large numbers of pine grosbeak around the bog. You could find a half dozen or more at almost any feeder in the bog. On this trip however I only spotted a couple females at the Admiral feeder and no other pine grosbeak anywhere else.

There were still a couple of boreal chickadees hanging around the Admiral feeder. They would come in and feed for a little bit and then disappear back into the bog. Forty five minutes to an hour later they would fly back in to the feeders, eat and then disappear again. While I was there I pointed them out to several other people who were looking for them because they were a life bird.

There were also a lot of gray jays at both the Admiral feeders and the feeding station on Arkola. Gray jays are very clever birds and not very afraid of people. On a couple of occasions I was afraid that one of them would fly though my open car window at Arkola.
After the two and a half hour drive and spending a couple hours in the car at the feeders I decided it would be good to get out and stretch my legs. So I put on my boots and headed off in to the woods off of McDavitt Road. This is usually a good place to find black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers. As I walked into the woods I could see signs that there were woodpeckers in the area. Black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers typically peel the bark off of the trees instead of boring holes in the wood like most other woodpeckers do. So I listened for their distinctive peeling sound and found a male bird at work deep in the woods.

It was a lot of work walking through the deep woods and thigh high snow to get the woodpecker pics so I decided to walk along a path for a while. This was fortunate because a little ways down the path I came across a northern hawk owl. Northern hawk owls are one of the few owls that are most active during the day, diurnal. The owl was perched over an area that had recently been used for logging and was probably hunting rodents that lived in the remaining wood piles. Later on I looked for great gray owls in the same area, I saw two on McDavitt in January, but on this trip I did not have any luck with great grays. This might have been because I did not want to stick around too late since I still had a two and a half hour drive to get home.

Gray Jays

While we were in Texas we had the pleasure to photograph green jays, south Texas is about the only place in the US that you can find them, but earlier this year I was photographing a different type of jay. While it is not nearly as colorful as its southern cousin the gray jay has several interesting characteristics of its own.

One of the smallest jays in the world, the gray jay makes its home in the boreal forests of Canada. Most gray jays stay in their northern home year round surviving the harsh winters by caching food during the warmer months. The gray jay will use its saliva to stick food, which includes insects, seeds, berries, small mammals, and carrion, in many different hiding places through out its territory. Some gray jays, especially young ones that may not have cached enough food, will head south and end up in northern Minnesota. I photographed these jays in the Sax Zim Bog in January.

Gray Jays in the Sax Zim Bog

Well it is almost that time of year again. Back in October it looked like we were going to have a long cold snowy winter, with several early days of snow, but in November things have turned around. We have had a good string of mild weather and no snow.

The nice weather can not last forever though. Sooner or later the air will get colder and the snow will come. It is November after all and in Minnesota that usually means the beginning of winter. Even though it can some times get quite unpleasant here in Minnesota in the winter time, unless you enjoy temps below zero and wind chills that can almost freeze the air inside your lungs, it is actually a great place to do some winter birding.One of the premiere winter birding location in Minnesota is the Sax Zim Bog. The bog is an area located around the very small towns of Sax and Zim. This area is a magnet for species that come down from Canada in search of food. One species that is usually pretty easy to find in the bog during the winter is the gray jay.

Gray jays are not commonly found in the lower 48 states except in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the north east coastal states and in the Rocky Mountains. We usually only see them during the winter time in the northern part of the state especially in Sax Zim. One reason for this may be because these birds often cache food the in nooks and crannies of trees using their saliva to help it stick. They are omnivores so caching food in colder climates help to preserve food that might go bad.

Gray jays are members of the Corvidae family which includes jays, crows and ravens. Birds in this family typically have a higher intelligence then many other types of birds. The gray jay is no exception, they are very curious and are often referred to as a camp robber because of their habit of relieving campers of excess food and other items. Sometimes you find a cousin or two hanging around trying to look cool, like this blue jay.

If you are interested in seeing gray jays then you should consider the Sax Zim Bog Winter Birding Festival which will be held in February. I have been to the festival for the past two years, it is only two years old, and have come away with some marvelous pics. You can see some in the current slide show located in the side bar. You can also find a link to more information on the festival right below the slide show in the side bar.

Wordless Wednesday: Gray Jay Sax Zim January 10th

Gray Jays at the Sax Zim Bog

I spent last weekend birding up north at the Sax Zim Bog Winter Birding Festival. Unfortunately birding festival are frequently not the best venue for people who are trying to photograph the birds. The problem is that photographers and birders usually have different requirements and agendas. Photographers usually have to take into consideration things like light, back ground, weather and distance in order to get descent shots. Where most birders are happy just to see the bird and sometimes even just hearing it.
Even if you don't have the opportunity to get that great pic festivals are still a lot of fun. It is a refreshing change of pace to hang around with people who are interested in birds and nature. Most people in my normal life do not pay any attention to the birds, although I am working on trying to change that.

Since I was not sure if what kind of photo opportunities that I was going to get at the festival I did go up early on Friday to have some time to shoot on my own as well as making a couple of trips up to the bog in January. These pictures where all taken on January 10th.

One of the more common birds that you can find in the bog most winters is the gray jay. This member of the Corvidae family can typically be found in the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska as well as the upper elevations of the Rocky Mountains. There is usually a small population that comes down from Canada in search of food and spends the winter in northern Minnesota.

The gray jay is able to survive the harsh winters of the north by caching food. They use their saliva, which is sticky, to glue food, which consists of carrion, insects, berries, nestling birds, mice or other small mammals, to hiding places in the trees.

If the temps get to high much of their cached food will get rancid which is probably why these birds stay in habitats with a cold climate. So while many birds have to fly south during the winter in order to find food in warmer climates the gray jay depends on the cold in order to keep a constant food source available to them.

Redpolls and Gray Jays at Sax Zim Bog

After I spent quite a bit of time on Admiral Rd and McDavitt Rd photographing three-toed woodpeckers and boreal chickadees I decided to head back over to highway 7 by the sod farm to check for the hawk owl again. I still did not find it so I decided to run over to Blue Spruce Rd to check out the feeding station there. I decided to take the back way so I took Arkola over to Owl Ave. While I was driving down Owl Ave I noticed several small birds flying around on a logging path that lead west from the road, so I turned around to take a look.

As I was parking I saw the reason that there was so much bird activity. Some one had dumped a bunch of seed on the ground, I think that it was black oil sunflower seed but I am not an expert since my small yard is not very advantageous for feeders, yet.
Gathered around the seed were a group of redpolls and black-capped chickadees.

The chickadees where pretty bold and kept eating until I got close, the redpolls would fly up into the safety of the trees any time that I moved and then return for another quick bite while I stood still.
I did not see any of them that looked like a hoary redpoll but they were darting around quite quickly so it was difficult to be sure. Plus I am not all that comfortable in my ability to tell a hoary from a common.
I had to go around the seed pile to get any descent shots because otherwise I would have been shooting straight into the sun. When I got to the other side of the seed I noticed what I believe is the print of a hawk plunging after its prey.It is a bit hard to see in a photograph but if you look carefully you can see the spread out wings, a somewhat fanned out tail and 2 talon prints. From the prints leading away I am guessing that this hawk was not successful on this hunting trip. I am guessing from the shape of the wings and the size that this was a hawk. Let me know if you think that I am wrong or if you can tell what type of hawk that it is.
While I was photographing the hawk markings a couple of gray jays joined the party. I did not have the right lens on the camera, I needed a wide angle to get a picture of the hawk print, so I needed to run back to the car to get my long lens.
I was able to get a couple of shots off before the jays took off for the shelter of the trees. It was getting late and I still wanted to get to Blue Spruce Road before I had to start the long drive home so I left the chickadees and redpolls to their feast and moved on.