NORTHERN BLUE JAY 33 



distinguished visiting English ornithologist who was eager to see a live 

 blue jay because he considered it the finest bird in the world. He was 

 surprised to find that this beauty, as he called it, is one of our common 

 birds. 



Originally a wild bird of the woods, the jay was canny enough to 

 adapt itself to civilization, and nowadays it often builds its nest close 

 to man, even in our gardens. 



Spring. — ^Although the blue jay is considered a permanent resident 

 over a large portion of its breeding range, and instances are known of 

 a banded bird visiting a feeding station throughout the year, there is 

 plenty of evidence that as a species the jay is highly migratory. In New 

 England we detect little actual migration in spring, as a rule. Although 

 jays become more numerous and noisier as summer approaches, they 

 steal in without attracting much attention. E. A. Doolittle (1919) cites 

 an observation in Ohio that may account for the inconspicuousness of the 

 jay in its northward migration. He says : "By chance I looked up and 

 saw five Blue Jays flying about fifty feet above the tree tops, and before 

 my glance had ended others came into view and still others behind them. 

 They were flying northeast and keeping very quiet. I began to count 

 them, and in about fifteen minutes' time had seen ninety-five Jays. And 

 this does not begin to number those that passed, for, on account of the 

 trees, my view to each side was much restricted, and there is no telling 

 how many had gone on before I casually looked up. They were in a 

 long stream, with now and then a bunch of five to fifteen." 



W. Bryant Tyrrell (1934) describes a striking assemblage of jays at 

 Whitefish Point, Mich., which were preparing "to cross the eighteen 

 miles of Lake Superior to the Canadian shore" — a favorable migration 

 route. He says: 



Extending south, back of the dunes — along the Lake Superior shore, is a 

 wooded region composed mostly of Jack pine, broken by small swampy areas. 

 In this wooded region the birds [of various species] congregate by the thousands 

 before migrating north across Lake Superior. It was in these Jack pines that 

 I saw hundreds — if not thousands — of Blue Jays (Cyanocitta c. cristata) on the 

 morning of June 5, 1930. It was a dull cloudy morning with a chilly northwest 

 wind blowing off Lake Superior. When we arrived at the Point, soon after 

 daylight, the birds, mostly Blue Jays * * * were exceedingly restless, apparently 

 waiting to go north but not caring to venture across in a northwest wind. The 

 Blue Jays made very little noise but were constantly milling around, usually in 

 flocks of varying size. A flock would form and fly off towards the lighthouse, 

 circling and rising all the time until they were over the lighthouse several hundred 

 feet high. They would continue to circle and then would come quietly but 

 quickly back to the pines, only to repeat the same procedure in a short while. 

 By the middle of the morning they had broken up into small flocks and gone oft 

 into the woods for the day to feed, congregating again in the evening. Each 



