During the spring and fall we often see lots of Blue Jays passing through “Our Woods.” Sometimes a few, like this one, hang around in winter and feed from the old feeder off our deck landing. This one has been coming regularly this winter, causing my wife and I to talk about their seemingly weird migration pattern. So I checked our National Geographic “Field Guide to the Birds of North America,” which we bought last year to replace our old Peterson guide that went missing. I like this one because it puts Range Maps next to the bird photos, but descriptive info is on the brief side and it includes so many species that it’s also heavier to lug around than the more area-specialized Peterson Guide we had. For Birds of Canada we have a large coffee table size book. And there’s always the Internet and, if we’re out for a walk, the Audubon app on my iPad mini.
Classified as ‘year round’ in southern Ontario, Blue Jays actually fly further north than the GTA in spring to breed. That explains why we rarely see them in the summer.
The above photo was opportunistically taken with my SONY Alpha A-6000 using the old 18-55 mm SONY E-mount lens fully-zoomed. I was using spot focus and mid speed continuous shooting drive mode.
mightyturk 