Day 216: Scrubby is back! For the last few years, a California Scrub-jay has been showing up at my feeders as their range expands northwards. I was familiar with the species from seeing them on southwest Washington prairies, and when the first one showed up here about ten years ago, I wrote it off as an "occasional." Perhaps I was a bit too precipitous in that assessment, because they seem to now be one of my regulars, although they come and go throughout the season. This particular subspecies (Aphelocoma californica immanis) tends to be a bit more drab than A. californica californica, with more brown on the back. It is also somewhat larger than the birds found in California. The strong "eyebrow," less prominent in females, tells me that this bird is a male. Now why couldn't he have arrived in time for Big Day?
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