Snow Jay
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Snow Jay, Perisoreus alba L 25-30 cm, WS 40-42 cm, Family: Corvidae
Description:
Crestless jay, similar to mainland’s Canada Jay, with long tail, fluffy bodies and heads, and rounded wings. Light overall, with white head and undersides, light gray back, and darker blue-gray wings and tail. Tail is tipped with thin lighter band. Bill is short, making the head appear large. Dark eyes and bill contrast with rest of head. Juveniles sooty colored overall. Sexes similar.
Voice:
Song consists of a soft “wee-oot” whistle and whispered notes. Calls include harsh scolding and “chuck-chuck” calls most commonly, though it is capable of a variety of sounds including clicks, chirps, caws, and rattles. Like other jays, the Snow Jay is a talented mimic and has been recorded mimicking the sounds of other birds, commonly raptors. More musical and soft than other jays; least vocal of the Novasolan corvids, mostly silent.
Range and Habitat:
Found throughout Novasola’s western conifer forests. Not found east of the mountain divide. Snow Jays prefer evergreen, boreal, montane, subapline, and temperate rainforest. Strongly associated with firs, spruce, cedars, and hemlocks. Can be found at higher altitudes than other jays. In harsh winters they may migrate to lower altitudes in southwest Novasola.
Discussion:
The
Snow Jay is a common bird of Novasola’s coniferous forests and mountain slopes.
Like all corvids, the Snow Jay is notably intelligent and especially curious.
Well known among Novasolan birds for its cute appearance and apparently fearless
and docile nature, people often have luck feeding wild Snow Jays from their
hands. Snow Jays are more comfortable with humans than even the other native
jays, and as such can provide people with excellent wildlife encounters. Snow Jays may silently follow hikers for miles down a trail, and people usually
describe the experience as “magical”. Despite all this, Snow Jays do inhabit
remote and rugged wilderness and can thus be uncommonly seen outside visitor centers
and campsites. As a result, to many people Snow Jays have become synonymous
with camping trips.
Omnivores, Snow Jays will eat almost anything they can find, including grains, seeds, nuts,
berries, fungi, arthropods, eggs and bird nestlings, carrion, small mammals,
and trash. Because they are so intelligent and curious, Snow Jays exploit novel
food sources, especially any unattended food scraps left behind by people and they
often steal food from unsuspecting humans. Snow Jays are known to follow
hikers for up to two miles hoping or searching for handouts or easy grabs.
Along with the Novasolan Jay, the Snow Jay is a common pest at campgrounds and
picnic areas for that reason. Unusual among passerines, Snow Jays will hunt
for and eat Novasola’s large endemic banana slugs, making them one of the few
endemic avian predators to the slugs, and the only songbird. Jays have been
observed on numerous occasions rolling slugs in dirt to clog or wipe away mucus
before eating them whole or in pieces. They have also been observed landing on
the backs of large mammals like moose to remove ticks. Like other corvids Snow Jays will cache food, especially meat and seeds, however they do so by sticking
food bits under the bark of trees, using saliva or slug mucus to make the food
clump stick. Excellent memory allows the jays to relocate most stashed scraps. They
are also known to raid the caches of other animals, including those of rival Snow Jays, Novasola Jays, ravens, nutcrackers, and chipmunks.
Quite
cold-hearty, the Snow Jay endures Novasolan winters at high altitudes, common
at the tree line. During the harshest winters they may migrate to lower
elevations or southward to warmer areas like Charlotte Sound. Along with their
color, this association with winter earned them their original name, Snow Jay. They
also breed early in the year, in late January and February. They bond for life,
and often don’t find another mate after the first has died or disappeared until
two breeding seasons later. Males and females both participate in building
nests, incubation, and rearing chicks, and they raise chicks in the cold of
March before spring has even arrived. Like some other members of its genus,
Snow Jays exhibit a limited cooperative breeding strategy wherein a breeding
pair are often accompanied by one to two other, non-breeding birds, typically
juveniles, that help feed the chicks. Post-fledging, chicks often remain in the
parents’ territory through the next breeding season.
The Snow Jay is an important cultural symbol for many indigenous groups in western Novasola. The Cishtaklun name for the bird is cikanangiq, and they feature prominently in tribal stories. According to one Cishtaklun story, cikanangiq is a wise forest spirit that helps guide travelers. A Kloshtiq story similarly depicts cikanangiq as a forest spirit, though in this version he is turned into a bird as a punishment for stealing from his elders. Russian colonists were the first westerners to encounter the bird, and many wrote about their frustrations with the jays stealing food from their camps. Much like the Canada Jay of mainland North America, white settlers soon began viewing Snow Jays as, and calling them, “camp robbers”, though on Novasola this name applied to many corvids, including all three native jays and the native magpie. The Snow Jay was formally described by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1838 using a specimen he compared against Canada Jays.
Though Richard Reichwald had read about "White Jays" prior to his arrival on Novasola, he didn’t come across any until July of the second NRC expedition, when the Corps had descended from the mountains into what is now the Down Refuge National Forest, the Corps’ first major exposure to Novasola’s western temperate rainforests. Snow Jays soon became a common sight for the NRC throughout the remainder of the second and third expeditions.
“After twenty days overland, we’ve reached what Captain Dyer believes to be the headwaters of the Chidkayook. We followed it downslope until we were sufficiently below the alpine zone, stopped only after we found a clearing in the firs of merit. We shall take rest here before we embark down the river in canoes, hopeful it will guide us to Great Shadow Lake. Too eager not to work, I set out early this morning to explore the forests, finding mostly subalpine species of firs, hemlocks, and pseudotsuga. As I sat to examine some berries unknown to me, my thoughts were interrupted by sweet notes, like questions from some quizzical creature. I turned to see a large songbird, white as the mountain snow, sitting in a branch no more than two meters from me, eying me with vast, glossed black eyes, its head cocked to one side. No sooner had I glanced the bird than I knew it to be the snow-white jay referenced in old Russian reports and described by Mr. Bonaparte. The Snow Jay flew closer, perching in the low deadwood of the fir to my right, now as close as four feet. His wings, much darker than the rest of his plumage would suggest, glistened an almost bluish hue. It was during his flight I became aware of the four other jays now making their way toward me in their own, delayed time. Two individuals were darker like charcoal, which I assume to be immature plumage. We stared at each other, no doubt both wondering how to proceed, and whether either party had encountered the likes of the other. After I tossed each jay a handful of my bread, they flew to a safer distance of five meters, but insisted on staying with me the rest of the morning, going so far as to follow me back to camp, much to the dismay of the rest of the Corps who were soon besieged of and many were forced to go the morning robbed of their breakfast.” – Expedition log, July 3 1903
“The Novasolan Jay is so mischievous as the Snow Jay is curious. Though the two share seemingly equal intellect, they diverge in attitude. Where the Novasolan Jay is aggressive and loud, the White Jay is soft and tame. But make no mistake, these birds are no more honest than their blue relatives. These birds have built a reputation among Novasolites of thievery as well; it is common for foresters and sportsmen while out in the western forests to have their food stolen by a White Jay, after it had hypnotized them into a false sense of safety. The Jay’s cute and loving outward demeanor entice all people to give away their scraps, often convincing the bird to feed straight from their hand. This behavior by both animals makes man one of the White Jay’s greatest food supplies. What is more curious is that that fearlessness in the face of man, the willingness to follow them for great distances and approach without caution, seems to be innate. Snow Jays themselves live in some of the most remote regions of Novasola, and much of the population goes their entire lives without ever encountering man, yet all the stories regarding White Jays from first explorers, myself included, suggest that same curiosity.
…
Though not often seen outside groups of related individuals, within the family unit the Jay is quite social. Mates bond for life and adhere to that oath with such rigidity it is without comparison. Should a mate die, the surviving widow might never mate again, and should she do so she most often waits the passage of two breeding seasons. Mated pairs tend to remain close to one another, and rarely fly beyond a mile without the other, all the while whispering their love poems to one another. Both parents take equal share of nest building, incubation, and rearing young, and once the chicks have fledged, they stay within the parents’ territory for another year, often helping to raise the next generation. During the summer it is not uncommon to see three generations within a flock of Jays. The White Jay’s is a model family.” – Native Birds of Novasola, 1912