Photo © by Leslie
Westlake Village, Ventura Co., California, USA, 14 February 2004
- Aphelocoma californica
Identification:
Length 27-31 cm (11-13"), wingspan 38-40 cm, weight 70-100 g.
- Large, stout, strong bill
- Long tail, make it appear larger than it is
- Head, wings, and tail blue
- Gray to gray-brown back
- Light gray underparts
- Dusky face mask
- White throat offset by incomplete blue necklace, sharply defined
Distribution
Occurs in the lowlands and foothills of the Coast Ranges, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada (USA), including Baja California (Mexico).
Taxonomy
Island Scrub Jay, Florida Scrub Jay and Woodhouse's Scrub Jay were formerly considered conspecific.
Subspecies
Photo © by digishooter
Wofford Heights: Kern County, California, USA, 7 June 2014
Currently recognized are 8 subspecies:
- A. c. immanis: extreme southwestern Washington to western Oregon (Willamette Valley)
- A. c. caurina: coastal southwestern Oregon to central California (Trinity, Lake and Napa counties)
- A. c. oocleptica: southcentral Oregon to San Francisco Bay and western Nevada
- A. c. californica: coastal ranges of central California (southern San Mateo to south-western Ventura County)
- A. c. obscura: southwestern California and northern Baja California (south to Todos Santos Bay)
- A. c. cana: arid interior southern California (Eagle Mountain area of Riverside County)
- A. c. cactophila: central Baja California (latitude 29º30' to Bahía Magdalena; sometimes included in A. c. hypoleuca)
- A. c. hypoleuca: the Cape District of Baja California
Habitat
Occurs in scrub oak, woodlands, and chaparral, but does not breed in low scrub because it needs watch posts; also inhabits suburban gardens.
Behaviour
Like all jays, this species may be secretive and silent around its nest or while perching in a treetop in early morning but is frequently noisy and conspicuous.
Flight
Glides in a long, undulating flight.
Diet
Omnivorous, eating a wide range of large seeds (particularly acorns and pinyon seeds), large insects and arthropods, eggs and young of other birds, small rodents, and similar.
Breeding
The clutch consists of 3-6 eggs, spotted on darker, greenish or reddish base, in a twiggy nest well hidden in a tree or dense shrub.
Vocalisation
Call: is loud, throaty jayy? or jree?
In flight: a long series of check-check-check notes. There are audible differences in vocalizations between the three groups.
Movements
Resident
References
- AOU proposal including a discussion of possible split of the three groups, read August 2009
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Gill F, D Donsker & P Rasmussen (Eds). 2020. IOC World Bird List (v10.1). doi : 10.14344/IOC.ML.10.1. Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
- California Scrub-Jay | Audubon Field Guide
- Birdforum thread discussing the taxonomy of this species
- Curry, R. L., A. T. Peterson, T. A. Langen, P. Pyle, and M. A. Patten (2020). California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.cowscj1.01
- Marzluff, J. (2020). Western Scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/60694 on 20 April 2020).
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) California Scrub Jay. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 4 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/California_Scrub_Jay
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1
