Gray Jay
Gray Jay ( Perisoreus canadensis)
The Gray Jay ( Perisoreus canadensis) is a passerine bird in the crow family birds ( Corvidae ). The species inhabits with numerous subspecies boreomontanen the needle forests of northern North America. It sets as the other two species of the genus to food supplies and lives year-round in solid grounds.
Description
Gray Jay are long-tailed jay with fluffy plumage and a short beak, a hood is missing. The animals have a body length of about 29 cm. Back, upper wing and the top of the tail are dark gray. The tips and the outer webs of wings, shield feathers and wing coverts are lined in variable depending on the subspecies extent whitish to pale bluish, the feathers have narrow whitish end seams. The bottom of the hull is solid whitish or bluish gray. A dark gray head issue is limited depending on the subspecies on the neck or extend up to the middle and top of the head to the upper edge of the eye, the rest of the head is white. Beak and legs are black. Birds in juvenile plumage are almost monochrome ash in all subspecies with only a blurry white beard Streif.
Dissemination
The Gray Jay is east to Newfoundland and Labrador and south to northern California, Idaho, Utah, spread from northern Alaska in the central eastern Arizona into northern New Mexico, in the central Colorado and up in the southwest South Dakota. He lives all year in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan, northern New York and northern New England. He wanders sometimes to areas north of its breeding grounds. In the winter, it draws an irregular northwestern Nebraska, central Minnesota, southeastern Wisconsin, central Michigan, southern Pennsylvania, central New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Systematics and history of research
The Gray Jay, together with the Siberian jay ( P. infaustus ) and the Sichuanhäher ( P. internigrans ) the widespread Holarctic genus Perisoreus. A total of eleven subspecies are recognized.