Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 4
Steller's Jay
Allan Brooks, Dawson's Birds of California, 1923 · CC BY 2.0
Bird

Steller's Jay

Cyanocitta stelleri
Crows, Jays, and Magpies (Corvidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A tall, sooty-black head and crest fading into deep blue wings, tail and belly, with pale blue streaks on the forehead: a bird that looks like it was dipped head-first in ink.
Male & female
Alike.
Voice
A harsh 'shook shook shook', a rising 'wek', soft warbles at close range, and an expert Red-tailed Hawk impression used to clear the feeder.
Diet
Acorns, conifer seeds, insects, eggs and nestlings, feeder fare, and anything left unattended at a campsite.
Habitat
Coniferous and mixed forest throughout the West; the jay of the Pacific Northwest.
Nesting
A bulky cup in a conifer, often against the trunk; 2–6 eggs.
Size
12–13 in long, 3½–5 oz: about a baseball. Shouts like a hawk, eats your sandwich like a jay.

Caches thousands of seeds each autumn and remembers most of them. The ones it forgets become trees, which makes it one of the forest's more effective planting departments.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 53 calls on 4 days, first Oct 28, last Oct 31

61100:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 2 calls08:00 — 7 calls09:00 — 3 calls910:00 — 11 calls11:00 — 3 calls12:00 — 3 calls1213:00 — 4 calls14:00 — 4 calls15:00 — 8 calls1516:00 — 7 calls17:00 — 1 calls18:00 — 0 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
1021Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 5 callsOct 29 — 11 callsOct 30 — 16 callsOct 31 — 21 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 29 11:11 am · 98% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 4:07 pm · 88% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 3:12 pm · 94% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 2:45 pm · 92% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

Steller's jay is a bird native to western North America and the mountains of Central America, closely related to the blue jay found in eastern North America. It is the only crested jay west of the Rocky Mountains. It is also sometimes colloquially called a "blue jay" in the Pacific Northwest, but is distinct from the blue jay of eastern North America. The species inhabits pine-oak and coniferous forests.
From Wikipedia, "Steller's jay", CC BY-SA 4.0.