California Scrub-Jay

Aphelocoma californica

California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica)
Image: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA, wikipedia

The California scrub jay is a species of scrub jay native to western North America. It ranges from southern British Columbia throughout California and western Nevada near Reno to west of the Sierra Nevada. The California scrub jay was once lumped with Woodhouse's scrub jay and collectively called the western scrub jay. IUCN and the Handbook of the Birds of the World maintain this lumped taxon. The group was also lumped with the island scrub jay and the Florida scrub jay; the taxon was then called simply scrub jay. The California scrub jay is nonmigratory and can be found in urban areas, where it can become tame and will come to bird feeders. While many refer to scrub jays as "blue jays", the blue jay is a different species of bird entirely. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 3,383,343 times across 11 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

RegionFirst arrivalLast arrivalTypical peakAreas
North America31 August 202631 August 202612 October 20261

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.