Canada Jays: the true early birds
“The early hen will get the worm” often makes us consider robins.
However the true early hen isn’t Robin Crimson-Breast. It’s the Canada Jay, also called the whiskeyjack or Grey Jay.
Grasp of the “staycation”
This northern hen isn’t any fair-weather feathered buddy, flying to the sunny south for the winter.
Just like the Blue Jay, its better-known cousin, the Canada Jay is Canadian to the core. This fluffy black-capped hen weathers the snow and chilly within the “nice white north.” This Canada Jay fluffs up its feathers in chilly climate, overlaying its legs and toes – even its nostrils are lined with feathers.
In late February, when spring remains to be a groundhog’s promise away, the American Robin begins dreaming of affection.
The Canada Jay is a step forward. Most of them have already attached with the love of their life. Every pleased couple has its personal patch of land, a 150-hectare territory the place they’ll stay out their days.
House, candy dwelling
As migrating robins are winging it northward, Canada Jays are already placing the ultimate touches on a family-sized nest. It’s cozy and comfortable, lined with cocoons and bits of fur and feathers.
They often select a sheltered spot on the sunny south aspect of an evergreen tree, to reap the benefits of photo voltaic heating, after all.
Jay strolling
Canada Jays stay in each Canadian province and territory. Although summer season campers in Algonquin Provincial Park could by no means discover one, they’re laborious to overlook within the fall and winter.
These charming winter ambassadors search folks out. Sharp-eyed and curious, they greet hikers and skiers and observe them alongside the path.
“We’re chill”
By the point migrating robins attain southern Ontario in early March, the lovebirds up north are already sitting on three to 5 eggs.
The chicks hatch in early April, when the northern forests are thigh-high in snow and the lakes are frozen. However the youngsters keep heat, even in snowstorms and 30-below temperatures, due to mother’s physique warmth and the well-insulated nest. Canada Jays typically stay to age 10 (16 is the file at Algonquin)!
The younger’uns are fledged and flying by the primary week of Could. They’ve left the nest earlier than most migratory birds even arrive dwelling!
What’s for dinner?
There aren’t many worms to catch in frosty March and April. So what do these “early birds” stay on? How do they feed their younger?
Canada Jays dine on bugs, spiders, berries, mushrooms. Bits of meat stripped from a lifeless animal. Eggs or child birds snatched from one other hen’s nest. They’ll even pilfer human meals, which has earned them the nickname “camp-robber.”
After they discover a good meals supply, they accumulate as a lot of it as they will – far more than they may presumably eat!
Stick it within the fridge
Canada Jays spend the late summer season and fall stashing meals for the winter. However their provides aren’t saved in a single central spot, like a hole tree.
These intelligent birds tuck a smidgeon of mushroom right here, a tasty piece of carrion there, in nooks and crannies all through their 150-hectare territory. The Canada Jay is usually known as “whiskeyjack,” which comes from the Cree and Algonquin languages (Wìsakedjàk in Algonquin, Wihsakecahkw in Cree).
However first, they roll the meals round of their mouths to coat it of their sticky saliva.
They glue these sticky morsels behind flakes of bark, beneath lichen, between spruce needles, or within the fork of a tree. One hen can conceal a thousand items of meals a day.
Cover and search
How do they discover all these meals? Researchers assume it’s by reminiscence.
They’ve watched Canada Jays in winter. These birds don’t waste time trying to find meals. They don’t sniff it out or stumble throughout it. They sit on a department, and when starvation strikes, they go proper to one among their hidden larders.
An extended relationship
Algonquin’s park naturalists have monitored Canada Jays because the Nineteen Sixties. It’s the longest-running hen research on the planet.
They usually’ve seen the park’s Canada Jay inhabitants is slowly shrinking.
Fewer than half of the Canada Jay territories recognized within the Seventies are crammed as we speak. And the researchers assume they know why: fridge failure.
No extra deep freeze
Most Canada Jay meals is perishable. Due to local weather change, winters are getting hotter. The stashed meals freezes and thaws, freezes and thaws. Is their meals going dangerous?
Park naturalists have seen that the birds appear to be abandoning the hardwood territories, and sticking with the boggy black spruce areas.
Spruce bark could make a greater fridge. Naturalists assume it slows down decomposition. That’s excellent news for Canada Jay dad and mom with a number of hungry mouths to feed.
Canada Jays or canaries?
The science work performed in our parks is crucial to making sure we adapt to the modifications we see in our world.
The Canada Jay is an indicator species – the canary within the coal mine – and Algonquin is on the southern fringe of its vary. If local weather change continues, this pleasant park favorite may disappear from Algonquin for good.
