Canada Jay

Perisoreus canadensis

The Canada jay, also known as the grey jay, gray jay, camp robber, moose bird, gorby, or whisky jack, is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae. It is found in boreal forests of North America, north to the tree line, and in the Rocky Mountains subalpine zone south to New Mexico and Arizona. A fairly large songbird, the Canada jay has pale grey underparts, darker grey upperparts, and a grey-white head with a darker grey nape. It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, a genus more closely related to the magpie genus Cyanopica than to other birds known as jays. The Canada jay itself has nine recognized subspecies. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 3,994 times across 36 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 15°C (typically 6 to 17°C, from 6 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 54°N in March to 62°N in April, about 900 km apart.

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.

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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.