Steller's Jays do this too, at least at our place about 750' elevation, eastern
foothills of the Coast Range, Benton County. It always confuses me at first,
til I track them down!
Karan Fairchild
From: "Robert O'Brien" <baro@xxxxxxx>
To: "Matthew G Hunter" <matthewghunter@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Oregon Birds Online" <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 3, 2019 10:27:56 PM
Subject: [obol] Re: California Scrub-Jay "Whisper Song"
I first heard this song as a birding kid on the San Francisco peninsula in the
1950's By then I knew California Jays very well & didn't believe my ears; then
I thought I had made a great discovery. But I did manage to find reference to
in in the meager literature available to me at the local public library. At
that time I spent all my spare time birding, e.g. hours per every day. I just
looked at my bird books of that day and find no mention of it so I'm not sure
where I did find it. Since those glory birding days, I've heard it very very
rarely. But here in Carver at my place Steller's Jays are the common birds with
only occasional scrub jays from the nearby, more open-county population,
usually during nesting when they come to the feeders.
Bob OBrien Carver OR
On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 7:48 PM Matthew G Hunter < matthewghunter@xxxxxxxxx >
wrote:
Hi Folks,
I thought a few of you might be interested in this...
A little over a week ago, Lisa McMaster from Portland posted on the Birding
Oregon facebook group a cell-phone video of "her" scrubby singing to her while
it was on a bench in her backyard. Lisa says this bird has been visiting her
feeders for at least 9 years, and is the only one that will let her hand-feed
it. And, she says this is the first time she has heard the bird "sing" to her.
You can see the original Fb post here,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/birdingoregon/permalink/793517527673137/ ;).
With Lisa's permission I have also uploaded the videos to youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm5WwH07NfM and ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEvuvurL6g . And the sound files were ;
extracted and uploaded to xeno-canto.org here:
https://www.xeno-canto.org/454465 , and https://www.xeno-canto.org/454467 . ;
In almost 40 years of birding in Oregon, I have now heard this "song" in person
only about 5 times. Of the 136 audio recordings and 15 videos in eBird.org,
none of them are of the whisper song. Of the 69 recordings in xeno-canto.org ,
none are this whisper song. I have yet to see a field guide mention it (maybe
there is one out there?). The Birds of North America account online (
birdsna.org ), published only two years ago (2017), has this under "Song":
"Soft, unstructured sequence of melodious notes, duration up to 5 min. Given
principally during courtship displays by both sexes when birds are close
together (< 25 cm), usually initiated by male. Tail fanned, head moved back and
forth in jerky movements. Also occasionally produced by solitary jay while
perched and otherwise inactive (TAL)," but ...the account cites only the
personal observations of one of the five authors (versus some other
population). I'm sure some of you have heard this before, but clearly it is a
rare event to actually witness it.
However, I was surprised to discover that if one searches the internet for
videos of scrub jay song sings or singing, one can find almost a dozen videos,
some taken with cell phones in back yards.
What's going on here? This at first seems like a bit of a contradiction. Well,
based on my own experience, including my fifth hearing of the song merely 4
days ago, this "song" is very quiet. A few days ago, when I heard it for the
5th time ever, I nearly passed it off, as I probably have done dozens of times,
because it is so quiet--I barely noticed it from a jay in a madrone tree at 50
ft--and especially at that distance it just sounds like some bird(s) mumbling
or perhaps leftover sound from something more distant, and I tend to pass it
off. Most of my experiences actually witnessing the song have been with the
bird merely 6-12 feet above me in a small tree. Now, if you are someone that
feeds birds regularly, and you frequently are "close" to scrub-jays, you might
be more likely to witness this song. Some of the you-tube videos are clearly
from peoples' back yards where they feed birds. The other factor I think is
merely the fact that literally millions of people have cell phones, and many
have cameras with video capability, and as you know, interesting things are
recorded and put on the internet these days that one might go an entire
lifetime without witnessing. In this way, internet sharing of observations has
become de facto citizen science.
Thanks to Lisa McMaster for sharing her observation. If you're not familiar
with this song, watch the videos and listen to the sound files linked above
(the sound files are louder and show spectrograms), and if you get a chance,
spend a little close time with your local scrub-jay and see if it might sing to
you.
Listening closely to the sounds and looking at the spectrograms, some of the
sounds seem "original" while some sound like they may be imitations of
something. In the second recording there is a sound that is most definitely
like the dive chirp of the Anna's Hummingbird; however, I can't tell for sure
if it was the jay making that sound or if there was in fact an Anna's
Hummingbird diving in the immediate vicinity. I'm leaning toward the latter.
Discoveries await even among the common birds....
Matt Hunter
Umpqua Basin
