Canada Jay (Gray Jay, Camp Robber): Another winter visitor from the forest
What a nice surprise it was to have Canada jays show up at our Banner Creek birdfeeder this month. These curious and clever birds are common residents of the spruce forest near Council, but I had not seen one in the Nome area since 2015.
Most years, a handful of birds of a few species that are Seward Peninsula spruce forests residents leave the trees to winter in surrounding shrub habitats. Black-capped chickadees, boreal chickadees, downy woodpeckers and pine grosbeaks most often venture beyond the forest, but on occasion a few Canada jays also will winter in the willows.
Jays are in the Corvid or crow family of birds with ravens and are among the most intelligent birds. Inquisitive and bold, Canada jays are always on the lookout for food–and they eat almost anything. Flying and gliding silently on broad wings they move from one high perch to another, pausing to scan for anything that might be edible.
It probably didn’t take such keen observers long to find our seed and suet feeders at Banner Creek once they arrived in the area. While welcome at our feeders, their fearless investigation of possible food sources can get them into trouble when they raid fish racks and meat caches which earns them the name “camp robbers.”
Canada jays are a northern species well suited to year-round life in cold climates. Their long, soft feathers fluff up for insulation, drape over their feet and legs for warmth and cover their nostrils to warm incoming air.
An interesting and unusual behavior–year-round food caching–prepares the jays for winter when food is scarce. Their large salivary glands produce sticky saliva which is used to glue food items to hiding places under bark, beneath lichens or in forks of branches. They scatter these secret stashes in thousands of places throughout their territory and remember where to find them.
Canada jays establish lifelong pair bonds. The pair remains together throughout the year and are seldom seen far apart. Typically, they defend permanent territories, which leads me to wonder about the pair coming to our feeder. Are they a young pair that hasn’t yet established a territory in the spruce forest? Or did they exhaust their food supply? Will they attempt to breed in this area beyond the spruce forest?
This pair will need to get established soon because Canada jays breed earlier than other northern songbirds, laying eggs in April when the ground is still snow-covered and temperatures fall below zero.
The male jay selects a nest site, almost always in a spruce forest, on the branch of a dense spruce tree, close to the trunk. A thick-walled nest cup of twigs, mosses and lichens is built largely by the male and lined by the female with grasses, fur and feathers for warmth in extreme cold.
Breeding records from the lower Kobuk River and interior Alaska report three to four eggs are usually laid in early April. The female alone incubates the eggs, which hatch in about 20 days. She broods the naked, helpless young, protecting them from the harsh weather until they grow feathers to keep themselves warm. The male feeds his mate and nestlings during incubation and brooding, then both parents bring food to their chicks.
The young leave the nest in 20-23 days which is before they are able to fly. They stay hidden in dense branches for another two to three weeks, relying on the parents to bring them food until they can fly. In northern regions, by early June the young are typically able to fly and feed themselves.
The family group remains together briefly, but soon the young begin to squabble and the dominant juvenile drives its nestmates away, forcing them to search for their own territories.
The dominant juvenile remains on the parents’ territory throughout the winter and sometimes through the next breeding season. The young bird is not allowed near the nest, but may help feed the new brood once they have fledged from the nest.
Biologists speculate that such early nesting gives the juveniles time to get established and cache enough food to survive the coming winter.
Canada jays are omnivorous, eating all sorts of animal and plant foods. In summer insects and spiders are an important part of their diet. Other foods include berries, seeds, fungi, small rodents, bird eggs and nestlings, carrion and anything they can scavenge from predator kills or human activities.
All these foods may be cached for future use. Lighter items are carried in the bill and heavier items may be transferred to their feet for transport, an unusual behavior for a songbird.
Canada jays are found throughout the boreal forests of northern North America. In some southern parts of their range, their breeding success and numbers are declining. It is thought that spoilage of their cached food in the warming climate may lessen winter survival and nesting success, thus contributing to their decline.
As the climate continues to warm it is expected that the range of Canada jays will move north as boreal forests advance to the north. As forested areas on the Seward Peninsula expand into shrub and tundra habitats, these fascinating jays with unusual behaviors may become more common in areas where today they are only occasional visitors.