Hi Jim and all
Scrub Jays were common in my neighborhoods long before the collapse of the
robin populations.
While I was going to wait until I had more time, I will summarize my long
history with Scrub Jays in the Portland area. Gabrielson and Jewett’s Birds of
Oregon referred to a Scrub Jay colony on Sauvie’s Island, which implied that
they were not generally in urban Portland. As a kid I the 1950s and early
1960s they were absent and then scarce, before gradually becoming common. In
perhaps 1962 or so, I had a bit of an interest in birds after having been on
bird walks as even a five year old. One Sunday my mom and sister had walked
home from church, and met a guy who was feeding what they called Blue Jays by
hand. I was interested, and went to the location about ten blocks away. The
guy agreed to feed the jays, and he went into the front yard with bread in his
hand. Two Scrub Jays soon arrived and fed from his hand. To this day, I have
not seen Scrub Jays respond like that, though I have hand-fed Gray Jays a
number of times.
Over the next several year, Scrub Jays started appearing in various areas of
the neighborhood.
Many years later, my mom who was at the time feeding Scrub and Stellers Jays,
told me about a bird he had never seen, describing it the size of the jays,
with a crest, white under-parts, and a checkered pattern on the wings. I said
it was probably a Blue Jay, to which she demurred, since she was still calling
the other two species Blue Jays, but had to change her identification when I
showed her an illustration of a Blue Jay.
Jeff Gilligan
On Oct 1, 2021, at 4:52 AM, jim destaebler <jdestaebler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi All,
Just to flog this subject a bit more, what about Scrub-jays?
From natives of the northwest, I've heard that they have only been here since
the eighties some time. I spent years working on passerine nest monitoring
projects, and they are a common cause of nest failure. Robins are very tight
sitters and something as small as a Scrub-jay might not cause a Robin to
immediately give up a nest, but Scrub-jays are very persistent predators.
The absence of Robins is probably the result of a combination of factors,
including local reproductive failure. A lack of birds immigrating to vacant
territory is also part of the picture.
Jim
