Owls have abundant cover in western Washington, but should one of them be startled by day, the Steller blue-coat is the first to note the villain’s flight. The alarm is sounded and an animated pursuit begins. When the Owl is brought to bay, the deafening objurgation of the Jays is not the least indignity which he is made to suffer. The Jay, in fact, seeks to make the world forget his own offenses by heaping obloquy upon this blinking sinner.
The notes of the Steller Jay are harsh and expletive to a degree. Shaack, shaack, shaack is a common (and most exasperating) form; or, by a little stretch of the imagination one may hear jay, jay, jay. A mellow klook, klook, klook sometimes varies the rasping imprecations and serves to remind one that the Jay is cousin to the Crow. Other and minor notes there are for the lesser and rarer emotions, and some of these not unmusical. Very rarely the bird attempts song, and succeeds in producing a medley which quite satisfies her that he could if he would.
C. stelleri, like C. cristata again, is something of a mimic. The notes of the Western Red-tail (Buteo borealis calurus) and other hawks are reproduced with especial fidelity. For such an effort the Jay conceals himself in the depths of a large-leafed maple or in a fir thicket, and his sole object appears to be that of terrorizing the neighboring song-birds. One such I heard holding forth from a shade tree on the Asylum grounds at Steilacoom. Uncanny sounds are, of course, not unknown here, but an exploratory pebble served to unmask the cheat, and drove forth a very much chastened Blue Jay before a company of applauding Juncoes.
It is well known that the gentleman burglar takes a conscientious pride in the safety and welfare of his own home. Nothing shall molest his dear ones. The Jay becomes secretive and silent as the time for nest-building approaches. The nest is well concealed in a dense thicket of fir saplings, or else set at various heights in the larger fir trees. If one but looks at it before the complement of eggs is laid the locality is deserted forthwith. If, however, the enterprise is irretrievably launched, the birds take care not to be seen in the vicinity of their nest until they are certain of its discovery, in which case they call heaven and earth to witness that the man is a monster of iniquity, and that he is plotting against the innocent.
In our experience, Steller’s Jay is not, as has been sometimes reported, a bird of the mountains. To be sure, it may be found in the mountain valleys, but if so it is practically confined to them. The bird, is, however, ubiquitous thruout the lowlying countries of Puget Sound, Gray’s Harbor, and adjacent regions, giving way only upon the south to the dubious Grinnell Jay (S. s. carbonacea).
No. 10.
GRINNELL’S JAY.
A. O. U. No. 478e. Cyanocitta stelleri carbonacea J. Grinnell.
Synonyms.—“Blue Jay.” Coast Jay (A. O. U.).
Description.—“Similar to C. s. stelleri, but paler thruout, and averaging slightly smaller; color of head very nearly as in C. s. stelleri, but averaging browner or more sooty, the forehead always conspicuously streaked with blue, and throat more extensively or uniformly pale grayish; back and foreneck much paler, slaty brown or brownish slate, instead of deep sooty; blue of rump, upper tail-coverts, and under parts of body light dull cerulean or verditer blue, advancing more over chest, where more abruptly defined against the sooty or brownish slate color of foreneck.” (Ridgway). Adult males: wing 6.10 (150.5); tail 5.51 (140); bill 1.15 (29.1); tarsus 1.75 (44.5).
General Range.—Pacific Coast district from Monterey county, California, north to Columbia River.
Range in Washington.—Has only theoretical status in State, but specimens taken along north banks of Columbia would appear to belong here.
Authorities.—? Corvus stelleri, Nuttall, Man. Orn. U. S. and Can. I. 1832, 229 (“Columbia River”). ? Orn. Com. Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. VII. 1837, 193. C. s. frontalis, R. H. Lawrence, Auk XVII. Oct. 1892, p. 355 (Gray’s Harbor). C. s. carbonacea Grinnell, Ridgway, Birds of No. and Mid. Am. Vol. III. p. 354 (footnote). L. Kb.
Ornithology is the furthest refined of the systematic sciences. So zealous have been her devotees and so sagacious her high priests, that no shade of difference in size, form or hue of a bird is allowed to pass unnoticed, or its owner unnamed. It is unquestionably annoying to the novice to be confronted with such subtleties, and the recognition of subspecies in the vernacular names of our birds is of doubtful wisdom; but the fashion is set and we will all be foolish together—so that none may laugh.
The normal range of Grinnell’s Jay, as defined, extends northward to the Columbia River; and since the district lying between the Columbia and Puget Sound presents intergrades between C. stelleri and C. s. carbonacea, obviously, those Jays which inhabit the southern portion of this debatable ground are better entitled to be called carbonacea than stelleri.