Class Notes from June 2011 Class on Jays and Crows

Jays and Crows:  CBS, resident. Pre-basic molt overlaps with breeding. For example in Clark’s Nutcracker starts PB molt in March and April.

American Crow:  Juvenile look fresh all summer, Adults molt in summer until July until fall.  First year birds start molt much earlier and molt in April – summer.

Stellar’s Jay:  Blue Jay:  mainly in winter as a migrant.  Most 8-25 à 4-1

Western Scrub Jay:  Like suburbia, esp. oak. Moving north.

Gray Jay:  In W WA 3000-sub alpine, E WA 3600 – timberline.  Juvenile birds darker.

Clark’s nutcracker:  start PB molt March-April, suspend and resume in the fall.  2 subspecies in WA, one in Ponderosa Pine with cliffs, others at high elevation  i.e. 4000 ft to the timberline assoc. with white bark pine, which grows in subalpine forest.

Black-billed magpie:  low elevation E WA.  A few W side sightings.  Resident.

Am. Crow:  news.  DNA testing shows not much difference between the NW smaller crows and the bigger crows.  Come in many sizes.

Common Raven:  fairly common W WA, common E WA.