THE OSPREY. An Illustrated Magazine of Popular Ornithology. VOLUME I. (New Series). Pablished Monthly. JANUARY, 1902. NUMBER 1. THE CALIFORNIA JAY (APHELOCOMA CALIFORNICA); SOME OF ITS HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. By D. A. COHEN, Alameda, Cal. Most of my observations on this species were made at Alameda, California, which is a sandy peninsula roughly four miles long by a mile wide, bounded on the north by level, dark, loamy or adobe fields, gradually merging into the foothills or Coast Range mountains, and on the remaining three sides by San Francisco Bay, its marshes and tributary sloughs. The peninsula, or city limits, was primevally a forest of stalwart and picturesque live oaks with more or less deviating upper branches toward the rising sun, due to the prevailing winds from the Pacific Ocean. Close to the bay shores the oaks are noticeably scrubby and stunted and possess a greater incline toward the east, the upper branches of some running only in that direction, in such strained fashion that the crowns are almost flat. Cypress, pine and Australian blue gum, (Eucalyptus), have been planted in profusion, but the California Jay is still faithful to the oak of its ancestors, rarely deviating from this custom in nesting. Oaks of younger decades were well intermingled with the deeper rooted, gnarled and lichen-covered trees of more ancient years, while less high, the chaparal brush and wild lupin, often small trees in themselves, furnished many a retreat for deer, rabbits and quail. Poison-oak, somewhat similar to your eastern poison-ivy, grew in patches by itself or found a runway upwards against the rough oak bark, and often a trellis among the upper branches, frequently assuming vigorous proportions. Masses of wild blackberry vines flourished in large patches under and above the oaks, meshing the brush or sending their multitude of runners up the low branches to goodly heights. Wild flowers of various and elegant hues carpeted the natural clearings, from February, when the sun coaxed the more hardy varieties into bloom by his genial rays, until May, when they began to fade and wither away, species by species, as the summer or dry season set in. In those days the game and the wild birds and the wild flowers were in their height of abundance and grandeur, but have gradually fallen back at the encroachments of civilization. The deer have long since become a thing of the past, but quail (California Partridge) still manage to hold their own on protected tracts, and an occasional cotton-tail rabbit manages to find a secluded copse of wild blackberry briars where he is safe from roving dogs, and hare or jackrabbit now and then ventures down from the hills. At the present day many species of our flora are but remembrances and only a comparatively small percentage of our avifauna represents the once abundant clans that furnished life and song to our woodlands. In fact, some varieties seldom visit these parts nowadays, but the California Jay is here in goodly numbers; too cheeky to be crowded out. He is now enabled to procure food from man's agency as well as nature's, a greater variety of more tempting morsels as he evidently sagaciously thinks, often building his nest in some vacant lot or safer yet, in some secluded garden where as yet an oak or two have been spared from the woodman's axe, among our population of over 20,000 souls. In only a few parts of town remain small tracts of oaks and underbrush in something of the original state, and rambling through them early in March we will find the Jays mated, rather unobtrusive and tolerably silent for such noisy birds, now and then uttering a low croak which is either a warning note or an intentional subdued means of communication. Late in March we may observe a bird convey small sticks, but the birds will stop work if aware of being watched. Roughly, in two weeks the nest will be completed, longer if the weather is cold, rainy or windy. Many nests are abandoned before work on the lining is commenced, from, to me, unaccountable reasons. In only one case have I known an old nest to be used for roosting purposes by the mate of the incubating bird. About the 10th of April is the mean time for fresh sets here, and by the 20th every pair should be incubating. Ordinarily five eggs constitute a set, sometimes four eggs, and sets of six are not rare. Mr. H. W. Carriger of Sonoma County, some forty or fifty miles to the north, informed me the birds in his district nearly all laid in March and the sets were mostly of six eggs. The foundation is a bulky affair, composed of a quantity of dead twigs from the live oaks and, being leafless and almost straight, fall readily apart when raised en masse. Then comes the nest proper, of a few coarse rootlets and fibres about the thickness of long horse hair, and lastly the lining, a generous quantity of hair from the tails and manes of cattle and horses, all this well cupped and neatly rounded and capable of being transported intact. The foundation twigs are well built up about the sides of the nest, roughly flushed with the brim. One nest is almost the counterpart of another, except the only nest I found in a cypress tree, and that possessed a liberal quantity of dead cypress twigs mixed in with the oak twigs which were brought from about 125 yards. A few nests found at about the same distance from any oak had the favorite foundation twigs predominating over apple twigs. Apple rootlets were well in evidence in the nest proper, but all of them were lined as usual with the fibre and hair mentioned. For a nesting site a medium sized oak is generally chosen, one with plenty of cover to it, usually near the end of a limb, not in the forks, but among the twigs, ranging from 8 to 10 feet from the ground to 40 feet in the tops of large oaks, nearly always in a well selected site to expose the collector to most risk and trouble. so built the nests are not so easily missed by the experienced eye. Being This season I took a set of four eggs containing large embryos, on April 15, from a nest 13 feet from the ground, near the end of a long horizontal limb of a medium sized live oak where its foliage nearly chafed that of a companion oak. Eighteen days later the pair had 4 eggs, embryos formed, in a nest 9 feet from the ground, at end of a horizontal limb of a bushy live oak, 50 feet distant from the original site. April 16, I took from a second pair, 5 eggs containing small embryos, 20 feet from ground in outer branches of very "bushy" live oak of quite large dimensions. The second set of this pair was found incomplete 20 days later, nearly 40 feet up in the crown of a topmost branch of a spreading live oak. It was only by the aid of ropes that the nest was reached, and it contained 3 fresh eggs. This oak was 200 feet from the site of the original nest. April 19, I took from a third pair 5 eggs containing medium sized embryos, from the top of a small oak, 20 feet from the ground, and the second set, of 5 eggs, incubation begun, 14 days later. The site was 15 feet up among new shoots of a severely pruned pear tree, and the nest was found begun two days after the first set was taken. April 21, I took from a fourth pair 4 eggs, although the bird was noted on the nest on the 19th and 20th. The site was 9 feet from the ground in outside lower branches of a gigantic live oak. The eggs of this pair of birds are marked much like eggs of the Woodhouse Jay (Aphelocoma woodhousei) although not so profusely. I have taken the eggs of this pair every season for the last 4 years. Each set was of 4 eggs only, except one of 5 eggs, also their second set this season which was of 6 eggs, and handsomer, and showing more variation than any of their preceding. One egg is not darker than those of the Bluebird (Sialia sialis) and all of them run very much so, probably owing to the thinness of the shell. In each set one egg is marked on the small end and is free from markings on the opposite end, and on almost the entire egg. The second set this season was taken 14 days from the first, fresh. The nest was hurriedly constructed considering the light layers of foundation twigs and scant lining, but well capped with red rootlets of apple trees. It was 13 feet from the ground in the top of a scrubby apple tree in an apple orchard, and about 180 feet distant from the original site. On July 7, unfeathered young were found in a nest in the thick growth of a tree, about same distance from the ground, and part of an egg shell on the ground, under the nest, established the bird to be the fourth pair mentioned. Their third set must have been destroyed considering the length of time elapsed since the second set was taken. On May 6, a nest in an apple tree contained large bunches of red cow hair as well as the balance of the usual lining. Two slightly incubated eggs reclined in the nest while a third, fresh, was over the brim, prevented from falling by the foundation twigs. April 16, I noted a parent feeding nestlings in nest in top of an oak, and was attracted by their clamor for food. The parent left the vicinity immediately upon catching sight of me. April 25, after an unusually hard climb of 25 feet among small branches of an oak with drooping branches I found the parent brooding newly hatched young. The nest was hardly visible from the ground, owing to an unusual amount of dead twigs screening many of the branches on the inside, and had escaped previous scrutiny. May 12, after visiting a lot of foundation twigs for a period of ten days, and seeing no owners about, I had concluded it was abandoned, but passing along on June 22, a missile thrown at it sent several young fluttering about to the tops of the branches. I had noticed the birds here carrying twigs extra early in March, and why it was twice abandoned before being used I cannot say. On May 17, a very small oak, not over 10 feet high, in a little clearing, held a nest near its crown containing 4 eggs about to hatch. They were much less pointed than usual, extra large, and of darker tone than any I have ever taken, much the type of dark eggs of the Crow (Corvus americanus). There is considerable variation in size and shape as well as character of markings in eggs of a season's take. Those of the reddish phase were rare, but Mr. Carriger says the Sonoma County sets often run that way, and I have heard the same from other localities, but have never seen the counterparts of the Woodhouse Jay's eggs except in the case of the fourth pair of birds above described. In the cases of the birds (four pair) robbed twice there was faithful similarity in every character between the first and second sets of a pair of birds. Taking it for granted that the female does all the incubating, she is a fairly close sitter, but a stick thrown at the branches about the nest will always flush her. She darts away screaming loudly, attracting her mate, who returns with her to aid in the protest, both of them swooping about or hopping from perch to perch so long as I am present, and perhaps joined by some of their tribe who help make more fuss. They are suspicious enough at times to abandon an incomplete set just because they saw me climb up and look into the nest, without touching it. The young when hatched are almost black and devoid of down, and are cautiously quiet at all times. Young or old, they are pugnacious to the last when captured. In the latter part of July and until late in |