The Audacious, Clever Gray Jay Is Under Stress in Vermont

"They're absolutely delightful birds," he said. He remembers watching a sharp-shinned hawk hunting a gray jay. The jay would hop out of the way, like a matador swinging his red cape, seemingly playing with the hawk. "It's a classic example of gray jay attitude," Barnard...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inValley news (West Lebanon, N.H.)
Main Author Rankin, Joe
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published White River Junction, Vt Valley News 13.10.2014
Subjects
Barnard, William
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Summary:"They're absolutely delightful birds," he said. He remembers watching a sharp-shinned hawk hunting a gray jay. The jay would hop out of the way, like a matador swinging his red cape, seemingly playing with the hawk. "It's a classic example of gray jay attitude," Barnard said. "It's a fun bird to study," said William Barnard, a biology professor at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., who has observed gray jays for about a quarter century, mostly at Victory Bog in the state's Northeast Kingdom. Barnard is one of only a handful of scientists in North America who study the species. He's banded 147 gray jays, outfitted 35 with radio tags to track them. He has discovered a lot about the bird, including how to determine gender by wing length. However, he still has many questions to answer, including why the Victory Bog jays appear to be bigger than those he's studied elsewhere, and why they have fewer blood parasites.
ISSN:1072-6179