Re:Stellar’s Jay, yes they are listed as occasionally hybridyzing with Blue Jays, (eg. in Boulder Co. 1969 a Stellars female seen feeding three hybrid chicks)
According to the latest range maps I have there is a narrow range of overlap mainly in Colorado and Wyoming. I know that the Blue Jay has seen its range move farther west in Saskatchewan over the past 50 years, so I assume it is also occuring elsewhere.
Keith
Right on, Odieman, apparently Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) are moving westward. I had to look this up - I’m a little weak on jays. Anyway, according to K. Smith (1978 Range extension of the Blue Jay into western North America, J. Field Ornithology, 49:208-214), range expansion is likely linked to increases in ornamental plantings and bird feeders in western urban areas. Smith saw these areas as places other corvids “neglected.” Interestingly, yabob, I found a website called Mystery Bird Public Comments which discussed the hybridization between Blue and Steller’s (Cyanocitta stelleri). It was suggested that the decrease in the number of hybrids (of various crossings and backcrossings) may be due to the increasing presence of the Blue Jay. They can find the appropriate mate more easily.
One other thing I learned about Blue Jays was a report by Forbush (he of the penguins) that a group of jays helped one partially blind jay by feeding it and leading it to water. Pretty cool!
FallenAngel, roosts are an awesome sight, aren’t they? The roost that I watched our radio-tagged crows use is on the southern end of Staten Island. It holds somewhere around 15,000 crows and it never fails to mesmerize me as the crows make their way in. One evening we counted about 300 crows per minute entering the roost. A river of crows.
DDG, as a birdwatcher (not a lister), when someone says “the size of a hawk”, I think of red-tails too.
Okay, Ruffian, crows they be! And thanks so much for the link. I’m going to send it to my brother right away. I know he’ll appreciate it very much!
I’ve forgot to post, and it’s not important, but I heard that crow song once in Magnolia Gardens near Charleston. I couldn’t believe that the crow was singing it as I never heard a crow sing before and never heard that it can. But after listening to it, I could detect a certain “caw” theme to the melody.
I’m also late in replying to Corivi re the location of the ravens I saw. They were, indeed, in DC itself, right on the mall. That was a couple of years ago.
I guess a red-tailed hawk or a red-shoulder hawk, being two of the most common, are the first hawks that come to mind when one says “a hawk.” Nonetheless, if you’re posting something informational I think it would behoove you to be more precise.
I was watching VH-1’s “Pop-Up Video” today. During a Tom Petty video, they “popped” that an extra was named Raven. Later, they “popped” pictures of ravens whenever she appeared, or when referring to her. Yeah, I can see the difference: the beaks are much thicker, and their “ruff” is apparent–kinda looks like a crow who just rolled out of bed into a very bad hair day.
Not ten minutes later, a commercial for a window cleaner featured two ravens chatting on a telephone wire. One was a typical black raven, and the other was what I believe to be a white-necked raven (his breast was white with a few speckles, but head, back, and wings were black). Of course, I could be completely wrong…but they didn’t exactly look like crows, and when they flew off to tag some cars at the end, I noticed their tail feathers seemed more fan-like. Who knows.
And who’d know crows and ravens would become such a topic of discussion?
**brachy…**Your brother’s horse wasn’t recognized by The Daily Racing Form. More than likely this is because she hasn’t entered the stage of training where she’d be posting workouts and such, but it’s also possible the name was misspelled. Let me know if it’s exactly as you typed it; if so, the DRF will make note of it, and when she does begin formal workouts and is registered, I’ll be notified. Mmm…horseys…
While we are on the subject of black birds, did you know that Ian Fleming chose the name of his spy from a book by an ornithologist, James Bond, who wrote *Birds of the West Indies *?
I’ve seen that commercial - they’re Hooded Crows (Corvus corone cornix), something like the Eurasian version of the American Crow. I wonder why they used them instead of our native species…I mean, come on, they’re speaking with an American accent! Must be their fancy feathers.
Bird of the West Indies by Bond…James Bond. I had no idea!
Here’s a segue to the horse hijacks. Hooded crows in Egypt are the number one carrier of West Nile virus, an encephalitide that kills horses (and humans). There is currently no vaccine for the virus. In addition to all the crows (and Blue Jays, and a raven and a magpie) that have died, we had a number of horses go down here in the Northeast and a whole slew of horses died in France last year from a West Nile outbreak.
{And now the hijack: The name is right, but I guess she must still be at Harris Farms. Brother rhynchos says she will start training this spring. I just assumed she’d be there now, but realizing this is only January, I guess it might be a bit early.)
Hey, I thought I recognized you from somewhere! You’re the one who came to our monthly Audubon meeting and brought 20 boxes of slides of fall warbler plumage, and then gave a pop quiz.
You know, the president isn’t usually that rude to people. She said she was gonna call you and apologize–did she?
And BTW, here’s one “birdwatcher” with 267 birds on her life list who has been “birdwatching” since 1968, in the Midwestern Corn Belt, where “hawk” generally means “red-tailed” hawk, it being the most common one.
When we’re doing the Christmas Bird Count or the Spring Bird Census, we do say “red-tail” or “red-shoulder” or “broad-wing”. But when we’re talking about how big the bird we just saw was, we say, “About the size of a hawk”, and it’s understood that it was a Really Big Bird, about the size of a red-tailed hawk, which is a Really Big Bird if what you’re used to looking at is pigeons and grackles.
So, how they do things where you’re at? 
Thanks for the info. That’s quite interesting as I never saw one in D.C. in the 5 years I lived there (1988-1992) and I birded often (and worked on the Mall.) Maybe ravens, like crows, are expanding their range and numbers.
(And that’s Colibri, not Corivi, thanks very much. Spanish for hummingbird. brachy’s the corvidologist, not me. I am, or was, a trochilidologist. 
Now I’m a general ornithologist.)
I lived in Boulder Colorado in the 1970s and indeed Steller’s and Blue Jays were hybridizing there at the time. I don’t know the present situation.
Ian Fleming named his spy after the famous ornithologist because he was looking for a totally bland name to contrast with his hero’s profession, and came across James Bond’s Birds of the West Indies.
And brachy, BTW my cousin is chief veternarian at the Bronx Zoo and was the one who first figured out that West Nile virus was what the crows were dying of.
Wow, Colibri, that’s cool - your cousin is pretty amazing. I remember getting some inquiries about dead crows and unfortunately it happened right around the time someone had been poisoning pigeons in NYC. So the poisoning thing seemed right to me. Actually, I doubt if I would have ever made the connection between native birds dropping dead and the introduction of a disease into the western hemisphere because that possibility never crossed my mind. I’ve thought about human diseases - Garrett’s The Coming Plague is one of my favorite books - but I had not considered the nonhuman host response before. And this from someone familiar with arthropod-borne disease and avian hosts, like eastern equine encephalitis. Sheesh, talk about having the blinders on.
But your cousin was terrific. She saw the possibility and pursued it even when initial (human) cases were attributed to St Louis (another flavivirus). It just didn’t make sense for native birds to be dropping dead to a native disease. So maybe it’s not a native disease… And the rest is history. It seems so obvious now, but we needed that leap that McNamara provided.
Yes, Tracey is my second cousin. Sort of a long-lost one, as our families hadn’t been in contact much until we got back in touch a few years ago. (Just coincidentally around the time West Nile virus began to be a hot topic.) She’s given me (and other family members) tours of the animal hospital at the Zoo. It was very interesting to me that she and I had taken up such similar careers.