[EBB Sightings] Family day at Sunol: Bushtits and What?

Hi Alan,
What you saw were juvenile Steller's Jays.  If you type in "juvenile
Steller's Jay" into a Google Image search, several photos of the birds you
described will pop up.

--Ted R.--

> Friends!
> I was at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness today (Wed., August 13, 2008)
> and
> strolled along the creek from the Family Camps west of the Old Green Barn
> down to the cor-ten bridge that spans Alameda Creek east of the Classroom
> building. I saw a motley crew of bushtits, a few adults and at least a
> half-dozen juveniles, with downy feathers still at the base of their legs,
> and only the central tail feathers grown out.
> There were a pair of adult Steller's Jays and five birds with them which I
> took to be juveniles of jays, but they were not blue at all- they had
> brown
> "shawls" (scapulars), and were otherwise mostly gray. And they had large
> bills and the beginnings of crests.
> Too large to be Oak Titmice with crests, the bills were black or blackish
> and kind of large for the heads that bore them. They were interested in
> acorns, bits and pieces of acorn shell, and they had that hop that reminds
> me of a sack race or three-legged race at a picnic.
> Google only presents images of very blue juvenile Steller's Jays, with a
> lot
> of black in the head and crest, which the birds I saw lacked.
> The two adult jays seemed to be associated with this mob, but what were
> they?
> Any help would be appreciated. Sorry, no photos. I am barely out of the
> 20th
> century and don't have that digital stuff (yet).
> Best of birds to you!
> Alan Kaplan
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