A Steller’s Performance

Autumn in southeast British Columbia is a perfect season–or at least the week of it we spent with Alison’s parents and brother was; there’s nothing like September’s bright skies, warm days, and the colors of fall, the reds of mountain ash and the golds of aspen and the rich browns of hazelnut bracts.

Those ripe hazelnuts appeal to more than just human eyes, and daytime found the dense bushes full of red squirrels and birds (who can guess what takes advantage of them at night?). It was rare to see an American Crow fly over without a nut in its bill, and Steller’s Jays were everywhere busy yanking the dried husks off the branches.

The abundance of food, and the need for nice hard surfaces for cracking the nuts, made the jays unusually conspicuous on this visit, and we spent a fair time enjoying their somber colors and outlandish expressions. And, of course, listening to them.

Like most corvids, Steller’s Jays have a pretty wide vocal repertoire, going far beyond the usual flight rattle and landing whine they give. Saturday morning, just before we left on the long return drive to Tucson, our final Kootenays walk was interrupted by a soft, sweet, simple song: divitty dvit, divitty dvit, issuing from a dense conifer. Neither of us recognized it, but a moment’s patience revealed a perched Steller’s Jay, its bill slightly open, its throat gently swelling as it sang. According to BNA, “solitary individuals perched in dense vegetation will sing with no apparent stimulus”; but I like to think that this one was celebrating the beauty of a British Columbia autumn day.