In my 14 years as a volunteer naturalist at Sax-Zim Bog, I had never seen “fledgling” Canada / Gray Jays till this morning. I had always heard that for a very short time after the young birds leave the nests they are “gray fluff balls”. This morning was super special for me. I almost drove by the mature Canada Jay I saw foraging on the side of the road, but I decided to stop and oh my … how lucky. I spent almost one hour with the jay family.

Just to give some perspective, in the same 14 years I have seen Great Gray Owlets on three occasions (and multiple times per nesting season). Thus, at least for me this is a much rarer birding event!

Canada Jay / Gray Jay Fledglings (two youngsters in third image)

An adult from this morning …

Attacking an old bee hive ???

The Movie (video link for blog email subscribers)