[texbirds] Blue Jay History
- From: Brush Freeman <brushfreeman@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 14:53:42 -0500
One really should read the historical accounts on this species to
understand the enormous changes those vast populations of Jays, crows,
nighthawks etc. etc. once moved into the state, really were. We see the
populations as what is provided in our life not as time has really
presented them. My perspectives of bird population dynamics will never
match those of a young birder in their teens and twenties now, and never
can, as frankly there has been that much change, nor do we still have the
sheer number of individual birds of many species we once did (Red-headed
Woodpeckers, Bobwhites etc. etc. etc, ) It is very hard for me to picture
what Simmon in 1925 experienced and impossible for to visualize what bird
populations will be in 50 years. So we have to depend on the old
reference, books, accounts, articles...Sutton in Okla, Oberholser in Texas,
Lowery in La. all put the past into words in their tomes. There are many
old accounts of Blue Jay, Crow, Nighthawk , Pigeon etc. invasions in the
historical accounts (I recommend reading the old Auks and Wilson's
Bulletins aavailable online via SORA, the accounts go way back into the
1800's)
But to bring it home to the Blue Jay, up until the 1850's and 60's there
was still vast areas of prairie that divided the east from the west in our
state, That expanse prevented the Blue Jay from reaching much of Texas
outside of east Texas....Slowly farms grew on the prairie and soon did
trees as towns and farmsteads increased. Simmons (1925) wrote that there
were no Blue Jays in the Austin region until around 1870 and that they
remained rare until the 1890's...Indeed he gives an early nest record as
April 27, 1919. Even at this time Blue Jay was still not found in San
Antonio with the exception of a couple of birds noted by Attwater in the
1890's, except on rare occasion.
Strecker (1912) tried to give us a picture of the animal's range
expansion in his "Birds of Texas" ...I find it all too brief.
Some of the old accounts of vast numbers of Jays migrating in fall
southward (along with crows) will send chills up the spine. My dad
remembered in the 1920'-30's literally 100s of thousands of crows going to
roost in Okla or moving south. I was lucky enough to see a couple of these
spectacles when I was young in the '50s but likely nothing in the numbers
he likely saw. I have never seen such numbers since. West Nile :-)?
--
Brush Freeman
Independent and affiliated Field Biologist
361-655-7641
http://texasnaturenotes.blogspot.com/
Finca Alacranes., Utley,Texas
The greatest musician of all time is mother nature.
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