A recent Marin Audubon outing at Bodega Bay with Peter Colasanti produced a good variety of birds, including Western Scrub-Jays along the west side. At Owl Canyon a cluster of sparrows were feeding actively at the base of a tree near the road and this Western Scrub Jay came in to check out what had attracted them. Scrub-Jays eat a variety of foods, including acorns and pine nuts, and just about anything else. It puts some people off because the "anything else" can include eggs and nestlings of smaller songbirds. Nevertheless, everyone's gotta make a living, so we might as well admire the Scrub-Jay for its adaptability and cleverness, not to mention its rather striking blue plumage. The black bandit's mask is perhaps a fitting field mark. The bill is more robust than the interior race.
Check out the long tail, and the aggressive "attitude".
Another shot after it hopped up to the tree nearby:
Western Scrub Jays were once part of a larger complex complex, which was split to elevate the Island Scrub Jay (Santa Cruz Is.) and the Florida Scrub-Jay to full species status. Currently under consideration are further splits within the genus Aphelocoma, with the Western Scrub Jay split into 3 separate species. The shy interior (inland) race, A. c. woodhouseii, would become Woodhouse's Jay, and a race in southern Mexico, A. c. sumicrasti, would be known as Sumichrast's Jay.
For dedicated taxonomy fans, check out:
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