page_title: Canada jay
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Canada jay / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: Perisoreus canadensis subspecies capitalis, Grand Tetons, Wyoming.
context_page_description: The Canada jay, also gray jay, grey jay, camp robber, or whisky jack, is a passerine bird of the family Corvidae. It is found in boreal forests of North America north to the tree line, and in the Rocky Mountains subalpine zone south to New Mexico and Arizona. A fairly large songbird, the Canada jay has pale grey underparts, darker grey upperparts, and a grey-white head with a darker grey nape. It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, a genus more closely related to the magpie genus Cyanopica than to other birds known as jays. The Canada jay itself has nine recognized subspecies.
  Canada jays live year-round on permanent territories in coniferous forests, surviving in winter months on food cached throughout their territory in warmer periods. The birds form monogamous mating pairs, with pairs accompanied on their territories by a third juvenile from the previous season. Canada jays adapt to human activity in their territories and are known to approach humans for food, inspiring a list of colloquial names including "lumberjack", "camp robber", and "venison-hawk".
context_section_description: In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Canada jay in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Canada. He used the French name Le geay brun de Canada and the Latin Garralus canadensis fuscus. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the Canada jay. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Corvus canadensis and cited Brisson's work.
  William John Swainson named it Dysornithia brachyrhyncha in 1831. French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte assigned the Canada jay to the genus Perisoreus in 1838 in A geographical and comparative list of the birds of Europe and North America, along with the Siberian jay, P. infaustus. The Canada jay belongs to the crow and jay family Corvidae. However, it and the other members of its genus are not closely related to other birds known as jays; they are instead close to the genus Cyanopica, which contains the azure-winged magpie. Its relatives are native to Eurasia, and ancestors of the Canada jay are thought to have diverged from their Old World relatives and crossed Beringia into North America.
  A 2012 genetic study revealed four clades across its range: a widespread "boreal" or "taiga" clade ranging from Alaska to Newfoundland and ranging south to the Black Hills of South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah in the west and New England in the east, a "transcascade" clade in eastern Washington and Oregon and ranging into Alberta and Montana, a "Rocky Mountains (Colorado)" clade from the southern Rocky Mountains, and a "Pacific" clade from coastal British Columbia, Washington, and southwestern Oregon. There was also a population of the boreal clade in the central Rocky Mountains between the Colorado and transcascade clades. Genetic dating suggests the Pacific clade diverged from the common ancestor of the other clades around three million years ago in the Late Pliocene.
  The boreal clade is genetically diverse, suggesting that Canada jays retreated to multiple areas of milder climate during previous ice ages and recolonized the region in warmer times.
  In 2018 the common name was changed from grey jay to Canada jay by the American Ornithological Society in a supplement to their Check-list of North American Birds. This change was also made in the online list of world birds maintained on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union by Frank Gill and David Donsker.
  Nine subspecies are recognized:
  Perisoreus canadensis albescens, also known as the Alberta jay, was described by American ornithologist James L. Peters in 1920. It ranges from northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta southeastward, east of the Rocky Mountains to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is an occasional visitor to northwestern Nebraska.
  P. c. bicolor, described by American zoologist Alden H. Miller in 1933, is found in southeastern British Columbia, southwestern Alberta, eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, northern and central Idaho, and western Montana. Miller noted that the subspecies appeared to be a stable intermediate form between canadensis and capitalis. It was a similar size to subspecies canadensis, and had a wholly white head with a black nape. Its body markings resembled those of capitalis but its coloration resembled canadensis.
  P. c. canadensis, the nominate subspecies, breeds from northern British Columbia east to Prince Edward Island, and south to the northern reaches of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, and New Hampshire, as well as northeastern New York and Maine. It winters at lower altitudes within the breeding range and south to southern Ontario and Massachusetts, and is an occasional visitor to central Minnesota, southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Pennsylvania, and central New York. P. c. canadensis is
caption: Subspecies P. c. capitalis, Grand Tetons, Wyoming
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