Habitat
Coniferous and mixed coniferous-deciduous forest, spruce typically present. Range in Alaska coincides with white spruce (B. Kessel pers. comm. In Strickland and Ouellet 1993), although black spruce is also used (Waite and Reev 1992). Common in campgrounds and other places of human activity, as well as bogs with scattered trees and marsh edges (Alexander et al. 2003). In B.C., gray jays are found along the coast up to timberline, and in interior B.C., this species occupies middle to higher elevations (700 to 2,300 m), ranging well up into the subalpine zone (Campbell et al. 1997).
References
Alexander, S. A., F. I. Doyle, C. D. Ecker, H. Grünberg, N. L. Hughes, M. Jensen, I. Johnson, D. H. Mossop, W. A. Nixon, and P. H. Sinclair. 2003. Birds of the Yukon Territory (P. H. Sinclair, W. A. Nixon, C. D. Eckert, and N. L. Hughes, eds.). UBC Press, Vancouver, B.C.
Campbell, R. W., N. K. Dawe, I. McTaggart-Cowan, J. M. Cooper, G. W. Kaiser, M. C. E. McNall, and G. E. J. Smith. 1997. The Birds of British Columbia. Volume 3. Passerines: flycatchers through vireos. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. 693 pages.
Strickland, D. and H. Ouellet. 1993. Gray Jay (Perisoreus canadensis). In The Birds of North America, No. 40 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: The American Ornithologists’ Union.
Waite, T. A. and J. D. Reeve. 1992. Gray jay scatterhoarding behavior, rate maximization, and the effect of local cache density. Ornis Scand. 25: 175-182.
