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Bird Lore: California Scrub-Jay California Scrub Jay (Photos by Carol Riddell)
The California Scrub-Jay is a bird sporting a new name. Up until this past summer, the Western Scrub-Jay would occasionally visit Edmonds, usually in the fall. There has been a recent split of the species based on DNA studies. We now see a bird that has been renamed California Scrub-Jay.
In the 1950s the California Scrub-Jay, was a rare, permanent resident of southwestern Washington. It is now a common bird in Klickitat, Clark, Cowlitz, and Lewis Counties. It has been undergoing a natural range expansion as far north as the Lower BC Mainland west of the Cascades. There are increasing Snohomish County reports of this bird. We consider it a rarer species for Edmonds but that is based on sightings in public areas. There may be more sightings at backyard feeders than we know about, especially where sunflower seeds, peanuts and other nuts are offered.