My sassy new steller's jay and nasturtiums by Kel Tait!
cypress mountain, west vancouver, bc.
Cyanocitta stelleri: A North American corvid bird, common in the Northwest’s coniferous mountain and coastal forests.
Look at me!
Steller's Jay, North Cheyenne Canyon Park, Colorado From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: A large, dark jay of evergreen forests in the mountainous West. Steller’s Jays are common in forest wildernesses but are also fixtures of campgrounds, parklands, and backyards, where they are quick to spy bird feeders as well as unattended picnic items. When patrolling the woods, Steller’s Jays stick to the high canopy, but you’ll hear their harsh, scolding calls if they’re nearby. Graceful and almost lazy in flight, they fly with long swoops on their broad, rounded wings.
"Quasimodo" is one bad-ass Jay. He's louder, nastier and pushier than the others - clearly the survival tactic of a deformed bird. In December, he arrived with a much longer lower beak. He was in rough shape with skewed feathers, stressed from fighting to survive with a beak that prevented him from eating properly. Happily, the protruding lower part somehow broke off. Although his beak function is still wrong, he's able to eat more normally. We help by laying out loads of cracked peanuts for him. It's unclear whether disease or genetic accident are factors, but pollution appears to be the culprit. An increasing number of deformed hawks, Jays, chickadees and eagles are being seen - 30 different species of Alaska birds have been found with huge curved beaks up to 3X usual size. Often the beak is so long that the bird can't feed or preen effectively and dies. The first deformed beaks appeared in chickadees near Anchorage in the 1990s, the latest are crows in s/w Alaska. alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/landbirds/beak_deformity/... Alaska Science Center blames these deformities on organochloride pollutants; compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins known to damage bird DNA — persistent pollutants from waste incinerators. Although production of PCBs has been banned since the 1970s, their effects are still felt, and many are still used in Asia. This is very bad news, as vast amounts of unchecked Asian pollutants drift north and around the globe ... another Silent Spring of sorts ? (www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp) fFacebook | Twitter | Getty Images site
Stellar Jay
Stellar Jay by Kristy Secord Blount is a top quality animal photo. View this photo and more on Pixoto.com.
https://images.app.goo.gl/XTAchyJWgdDaYbSn6
The contrast of a Blue Jay’s bright feathers against the winter snow is simply stunning! #WinterBirding #BirdsInSnow #NaturePhotography #WildlifeLover #SnowyWonders
Giant George
Started feeding again today after a long absence. We have to wait until Grizzly and Black Bears have denned .. and I think the bird food is safe now ... (Steller's Jay here.)
Steller's Jay
