Black-Headed Jay Mimicking Loon
Journal
Condor
Volume
37
Issue
3 (May-June)
Year
1935
Pages
170
Section
From Field and Study
Online Text
Black-headed Jay Mimicking Loon
At Okanagan Landing, on a morning in early May, the tremolo call of a Loon (Gavia immer) coming, so I thought, from far out on the lake and subdued by the distance, was accepted as genuine without question as to its source. Then my attention was attracted to a party of three Black-headed Jays (Cyanocitta stelleri annectens) which moved about in the brush along the lake shore, and, to my surprise, the low, quavering call, again repeated, was traced to one of these birds which was perched on a hawthorn branch thirty feet from where I stood. Upon its last performance the mimicked loon call was followed by a warbled cadence of four liquid notes.
J. A. Munro
Okanagan Landing, B. C., Canada, August 11, 1934
