Читать книгу Life Histories of North American Jays, Crows, and Titmice - Arthur Cleveland Bent - Страница 27

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Based on a study of some 49 specimens of blue jays from Colorado, extreme western Oklahoma, and Kansas, Dr. George M. Sutton (1935) named this pale western race and described it as “similar to all races of Cyanocitta cristata found to the eastward of the Mississippi, but coloration paler, especially on the crest and back; paler even than C. c. semplei Todd, from which it differs also in being decidedly larger and relatively smaller-billed; and much paler than birds from Michigan; Minnesota; Ontario and southeastern Canada; and the northeastern United States. White markings of wings and tail noticeably more extensive than in semplei, and somewhat more extensive than in breeding birds from Georgia, Louisiana, and northern Florida.” He says further:

All available Minnesota specimens are far too dark for the present race; Manitoba specimens apparently tend to be a trifle paler than eastern Canadian birds; and a single mile from Alberta (Lac la Nonne, June 28, Canadian National Museum No. 21512) is decidedly paler than any other Canadian specimen at hand, especially on the crest.

It is my present belief that the most typical examples of cyanotephra are to be found in extreme western Oklahoma, where the Blue Jay is decidedly rare as a breeding species, in eastern Colorado; in western Kansas; and in the northwestern corner of the northern Panhandle of Texas; but that the race ranges throughout Kansas and northern Oklahoma (save in treeless regions); throughout Nebraska (save presumably in the northeastern part where the race found in Minnesota should occur); and along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the northwestward of Nebraska.