A pair with whom I experimented near Wallula rather fell into the humor of the thing. The Magpie is ever a wag, and these must have known that repeated visits could mean no harm. Nevertheless, as often as I rattled the nest from my favorite perch on the willow tree, the old pies opened fresh vials of wrath and emptied their contents upon my devoted head. When mere utterance became inadequate, the male bird fell to hewing at the end of a broken branch in most eloquent indignation. He wore this down four inches in the course of my three visits. Once, when my attention was diverted, he took a sly crack at my outstretched fingers, which were hastily withdrawn; and, believe me, we both laughed.
The Black-billed Magpie winters practically thruout its breeding range, but it also indulges in irregular migratory movements, which in Washington take the form of excursions to the coast. While never common on Puget Sound, they are not unlikely to occur anywhere here in the fall of the year, and are almost certain to be found somewhere about the southern prairies. They return early in spring by way of the major passes, and are not again seen within the heavily timbered areas during the breeding season. Mr. D. E. Brown, then of Glacier, on the north fork of the Nooksack River, records under date of March 4, 1905, the appearance of several bands of Magpies passing eastward at a considerable height, perhaps something between three and five thousand feet. He says they were unrecognizable until glasses were trained on them, and he thinks he must have seen at least fifty birds, with chances for many more to have passed unobserved.
East or west the Magpie becomes a pensioner of the slaughter house in winter, and his fondness for meat has often proved his undoing in the cattle country. As a scavenger his services are not inconsiderable. The only trouble is, as has been said, that he sometimes kills his own meat.
Volumes could be written of the Magpie as a pet. He is a brainy chap as well as a wag, and infinitely more interesting than a stupid parrot. Mischief is his special forte: the untying of shoe-strings, the investigation of cavities, the secreting of spoons, and the aimless abstraction of gold teeth are his unending delight. Once when the writer was shelling seed peas in the garden, a spoiled “Jackity” assayed to fill his (the man’s) ears with these innocent pellets; and when he discovered a rent in the knee of the man’s trousers, he fairly chortled, “Well; I see myself busy for a week filling that hole!”
Cage life is irksome for bird or beast; but, if we must be amused, and, above all, if we feel called upon to pass adverse judgment upon this gifted bundle of contradictions, as he exists in a state of nature, let our harshest sentence be sociable confinement with occasional freedom on parole. A bird in the cage is worth two in the obituary columns.
No. 8.
CALIFORNIA JAY.
A. O. U. No. 481. Aphelocoma californica (Vigors).
Description.—Adults: In general blue, changing to brownish gray on back (scapulars and interscapulars), whitening variously on underparts; crown, hind neck and sides of neck dull cobalt blue, nearly uniform; wings, tail, and upper tail-coverts dull azure blue; cheeks and auriculars cobalt blue and dusky; chin, throat, and chest, centrally, white, the last-named with admixture of blue in streaks, and passing into the clear blue of its sides; breast sordid gray, passing into dull white of remaining underparts; shorter under tail-coverts pure white, the longer ones tinged with pale blue; bill and feet black; iris brown. In young birds the blue of adults is supplanted by mouse-gray on head and lower neck, rump, etc., save that crown is tinged with blue; the gray of back is of a deeper shade; the underparts are white, save for light brownish wash across breast and sides. Length of adult males 11.50-12.25; wing 5.00 (127); tail 5.60 (143); bill 1.00 (25.4); tarsus 1.60 (41). Females slightly smaller.
Recognition Marks.—Robin size; blue coloration without crest; whitish underparts.
Nesting.—Nest: a bed of small twigs without mud and heavily lined with fine dead grass; 8 inches across outside by 3½ in depth—thus much smaller and lighter than that of the Steller Jay—placed at moderate elevation in tree or bush in thicket near water. Eggs: 3-6, usually 4 or 5, deep green of varying shades, spotted with reddish browns. Av. size, 1.11 × .82 (28.2 × 20.8). Season: first week in May; one brood.
General Range.—Pacific Coast district of United States, including eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range in Oregon, north to southwestern Washington.
Range in Washington.—Of limited but regular occurrence along the banks of the Columbia west of the Cascades. Resident.
Authorities.—[“California Jay,” Johnson Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885), 22]. [Belding, Land Birds Pac. Dist. (1890) p. 111] Aphelocoma californica, Lawrence, Auk, July, 1892, p. 301.
Specimens.—C.
Thru the western part of Oregon the breeding limits of the California Jay do not extend as far north as the Columbia River. I have never known of this species nesting about Portland, yet thirty miles south and southwest it is not at all uncommon. Thru the Willamette Valley, one meets this bird about as often as the Steller Jay. The habits of the two jays are much the same, yet the birds are easily distinguished by their dress, the California Jay having more resemblance to the Blue Jay of the East in color but lacking the crest, while the Steller Jay has a dark blue and blackish coat with the long crest.
Taken in Oregon. Photo by Finley and Bohlman.
YOUNG CALIFORNIA JAY.