Gray Jay & Common Redpoll

28 & 29 March 2015 Algonquin Park, ON. We took a weekend off and went north to a small and rather elegant lakeside resort. Odd, in a way, that just when winter is finally letting go, we should choose to go to where it is still firmly in control. Still, it was all very beautiful, Christmas card scenery with clean virgin snow draping spruce trees and clear blue skies.

A few days before our arrival, we were asked if we had any special needs or requests; I answered, suggesting that Gray Jays and Evening Grosbeaks would be a nice touch. I got the Gray Jay, just one; but no grosbeaks.

A scattering of seed just outside the dining room attracted a sizeable flock of Common Redpolls. We sometimes see redpolls in southern Ontario but it’s been a couple of years since I last encountered any and that was along a roadside where one or two were picking over some the snow covered Goldenrod seed-heads. For us they are only ever winter visitors because they breed very far north in the high latitudes south of Hudson Bay, a land of dry lichen-heath tundra, stunted spruces and willow thickets. This hungry flock was very quick to flee at the first sudden sound or movement, but with patience I was able to move in close enough for a few shots that capture their dainty essence of finch.

The Gray Jay was something of a triumph. It’s not that they are particularly rare within their broad boreal range, but that range does not extend far enough south for it to be a familiar bird. I was feeling a bit of Gray Jay deficit. While the related Blue Jays are unfailingly spectacular and raucous, Gray Jays instead are a beautiful pearly grey and white, quiet and endearing.

Interestingly, a closely related yet slightly more colourful species, the Siberian Jay, is found in the similar habitat across Eurasia and another, the increasingly rare Sichuan Jay, inhabits a small part of Tibet. The Siberian and the Gray are both known for their quiet boldness and are perfectly at ease hanging around campsites where they will readily swoop down to pick up unguarded food. Despite their quiet ways, there is nothing surreptitious about Gray Jays, I suppose if they were humans we’d say butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. You can get away with a lot that way.

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