Bird of the Week – Steller’s Jay
The story may be apocryphal. Georg Wilhelm Steller was a German who served as naturalist on Vitus Bering’s ill-fated expedition to Alaska 1740-41. Among his references for the trip was a plate of a Blue Jay sent to him by one Benjamin Franklin, an amateur naturalist in the British colonies. The similarities between the Blue Jay in Franklin’s plate and the bird later named the Steller’s Jay provided Georg Steller with biological evidence that Vitus Bering had found westernmost North America.
Steller’s Jay, Seward, Alaska
This particular bird can’t believe his luck: it has found a fallen seed cake in a downtown Seward park.
The popuations of Steller’s Jay are healthy; other species first identified by Georg Steller haven’t done too well. Of the six species of birds and mammals that Steller discovered during that 1741 voyage, two are extinct (Steller’s Sea Cow and the Spectacled Cormorant), and three are endangered or in severe decline (Steller’s Sea Lion, Steller’s Eider and Steller’s Sea Eagle). The sea cow, in particular, a massive northern relative of the manatee, lasted barely 25 years after Steller discovered and named it. The limited population quickly became victim of over-hunting by the Russian crews that followed Bering’s pioneering voyage.
For that matter, George Steller, who barely survived the voyage (Bering didn’t), was imprisoned twice and finally died in the Russian Far East, never making it back to Europe.
Camera geek stuff: f4, 1/250, ISO 800
For more bird photos, please visit Frozen Feather Images.
Once upon a time we had a Stellar’s jay that had trained us – and the neighbors, too, as it turned out – to come out onto the porch and leave some bird treats on the railing if it knocked on the kitchen window with its beak.
“Yo! Humans! I’m hungry!”
You are an absolute fount of info and eye delight. Thank you muchisimo.
Love watching those guys. Sassy, bossy, loud. Almost as good as the ravens I’m watching in my parking lot.
Interesting new info for me. Here..I watch them..and the local brush jays, and..the brown squirrels..burying hazelnuts all about the farm.then, fighting over who’s cache..is who’s. When lil critters are dealing with ‘ownership issues’..the scuffles can really get down, dirty and..Noisesome!
Thanks for the lesson!
These little fellers are members of the crow family. I did not know that until today. I also didn’t find any Jay that resembled the Steller’s Jay (colorwise)in Eastern America. Good to learn new stuff. Hope there ain;t a quiz coming. Thanks,WC.