[EBB Sightings] WESTERN SCRUB-JAY NEST

Hi all,
I think this is a normal date for the carrying of nest
material for scrub-jays. Below is a snippet from the
hopefully soon-to-be-completed Contra Costa County
Breeding Bird Atlas. As you will notice, it hasn't yet
been edited. :-)
The San Mateo atlas lists 5 records of adults carrying
nest material during the month of February, including
one on February 7, suggesting they were out in the
field en masse much earlier than we were.
Steve Glover
Dublin

The atlas database contains 405 records of Western
Scrub-Jays and includes 158 confirmations, thus giving
it the honor of having the most total records and the
most confirmations of any bird during the atlas,
narrowly beating out Mourning Dove, House Finch and,
thankfully, European Starling. Much of this is due to
the outgoingness of the adults and fledglings rather
than true numbers and it is likely that each of those
three actually outnumbers the scrub-jay in the county.

Pairs of Western Scrub-Jays remain together on
territories that they aggressively defend year-round
(Curry et al. 2002) and thus pairs were noted as early
in the season as atlasing began. Courtship was noted
on four occasions between 13 March and 24 April.
Thirty-one confirmations based upon adults carrying
nest material were gathered between 3 March and 5 June
with the overwhelmingly majority in March and April.
Adults were found on occupied nests just twice, each
on 5 April. Four sighting of nests with young ranged
from only 21-29 May. Of ten eggs sets at the M.V.Z.
that were collected in the county, the dates span 30
March-13 May. Adults were noted carrying food on 14
occasions 28 April-26 June. Caution is warranted in
this situation as these jays carry acorns throughout
the year that are not used to feed young. Recently
fledged young, some being actively fed by adults and
some not, proved easy to detect and were tallied 106
times with dates spanning 5 May-11 July with very late
reports from 16 August and 5 September. Late nestings
likely represent renesting attempts, as they are
unknown to double-brood (Curry et al. 2002). Because
little atlasing takes place after early August, it is
unclear how commonly such late nesting takes place
though the egg of a nestling found in San Mateo County
in 1987 was thought to have been laid about 8
September. It is suggested that a heavy acorn crop
that season may have been responsible (Curry et al.,
2002). 


--- Sylvia Sykora  wrote:

> Seems early to me but today I saw a Scrub-Jay fly
> across the West Ridge trail in Redwood Park with
> nesting material.  The bird was easily tracked to a
> poison oak thicket where a well constructed nest was
> visible from the trail.  
> 
> Sylvia Sykora
> Oakland, CA
>