Talk:Canada jay

Breeding areas

Article says

Their breeding habitat is forested areas containing conifers across Canada, Alaska and coastal and montane parts of the western United States.

"Forested areas containing conifers" certainly describes many areas in New York and New England, and the "Canada jays" are well known to hikers in the White Mountains (New Hampshire), where can be seen waiting for handouts, esp'ly at elevations above 3000 feet, and especially at trail junctions and summits.

"gray jays" "new england"

gets "199 of about 355" hits on Google, and with a much narrower geographic area

"gray jays" "white mountains"

"86 of about 185". I'm adding a nonspecific reference to these two areas, without thorough research that presumably would justify more specific language.
--Jerzy•t 22:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Three important questions section

The section in this article about the three important questions is super fascinating, but it's not really encyclopedic, and it sounds like original research and needs to be backed up with sources. Wikipedia is not really the right platform for getting your research known to the public... romarin [talk ] 14:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Under habitat, the article states: "Gray Jays do not inhabit the snowy, coniferous, and therefore seemingly appropriate Sierra Nevada of California where no spruce and neither of the two named pines occur." The "two named pines" referenced in the article include the lodgepole pine, which is the dominant pine in the higher elevations of the Sierra. So obviously, the article is wrong in suggesting that the presence of lodgepoles is tied to Gray Jay presence.--76.91.70.47 (talk) 20:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Lead

“It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, the others being the Siberian Jay, P. infaustus, found from Norway to eastern Russia and the Sichuan Jay, P. internigrans, restricted to the mountains of eastern Tibet and northwestern Sichuan. All three species store food and live year-round on permanent territories in coniferous forests.”

This description from the Lead feels out of place. The whole Lead is only two or three sentences, dominated by the quotation here yet mostly describing birds not in the article. I think it’s relevant and important content, but it should be moved to a range or related species section further down the page.

As I understand it, the Lead paragraph should be restricted to direct and significant references to the article subject, with expository references organised by section. Cheers — Muckapedia (talk) 31^e mars 2010 16h24 (−4h)

Canada's national bird

I've added a section on the Canadian Geographic national bird poll that announced its results yesterday and recommended the gray jay as Canada's national bird. The magazine itself and most of the sources covering the announcement are being careful to say that it's Canadian Geographic's recommendation, and has not been adopted in any official capacity by the government. We should not be saying that it is "the national bird", not yet anyway. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:55, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 November 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) Fuortu (talk) 10:57, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

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Gray jay → Grey jay – Per WP:TITLEVAR: as a proposed national symbol of Canada and a species inhabiting that country primarily, has obvious strong national ties and Canadian English prefers "grey". Also the official name according to the IOC World Bird Names: the IOC's article on English naming specifically addresses the gray vs. grey problem, preferring the British spelling (grey) for all official bird names. The species is likewise listed by the organization as "grey jay". Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:36, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support: the IOC reference sealed the deal for me. Ebonelm (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support per above. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:44, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support per above, would have moved it myself but there's a redirect page in the way.BearGlyph (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

I recommend that the title be changed to Canada Jay. This was the official name of the bird for about 200 years until 1957. The reason for the change to Gray Jay is unknown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.156.231.72 (talk) 18:58, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support As per nom. I believe all articles should be in the version of English preferred by the country they relate to. XyzSpaniel Talk Page 19:57, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support: Article is about a (mostly) Canadian non-migratory bird. The IOC name and Canada's national bird are just icing on the move-it-already cake. FUNgus guy (talk) 05:37, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support Personally, I prefer Canada Jay but Grey Jay is acceptable until IOC changes its mind. Dger (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support Not my usual area of editing but nonetheless, I read an interesting article on the CBC this morning supporting the spelling of "grey" rather than gray. Furthermore, it goes on to discuss the spelling of "whiskey" versus "whisky", where whisky is actually the proper English spelling. Garretka (talk) 22:07, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support Personally, I prefer Canada Jay but Grey Jay is acceptable until IOC changes its mind. (as per user Dger). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dziedzicmj (talk • contribs) 21:32, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Large unreferenced section

Back in 2007, User Dan Strickland added a large block of unreferenced prose in this series of edits, in a style more narrative than encyclopedic. It's been tagged as original research since 2009, and as needing references since 2014.

It's most definitely original research: Dan Strickland is a researcher who's made a life out of studying these birds, and added as references five papers he's co-authored on the subject. We can probably consider him a subject matter expert, except he didn't add any inline citations to his work. In the meantime, it looks like other editors have built out the article making inline citations to reliable sources, and now I think this section may be redundant. I'm going to go through and try to clean it up, and am likely going to delete a lot of it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:09, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I had a good look at this over the last few days. Strickland's edit gave the section a focus on certain peculiar behaviours of the gray jay versus general understandings of evolutionary biology. Interesting for sure, but very technical for an encyclopedia, and entirely unreferenced (likely his own work). Other users have used Strickland's papers and other sources to build out the other sections in more general terms over the years, and so Strickland's section has become largely redundant. I used a bit of Strickland's edits in the general section and moved his pictures to other parts of the article, but what was left I've deleted. It's preserved in the article history in case anyone wants to have a look at it, it really is quite interesting, but just not quite a fit for the encyclopedia. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:13, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

ENGVAR change

I have assumed that since there was broad consensus to change the title of the article, that there would be broad support to change the variety of English in use in the article to Canadian English, and have boldly done so and will add the banner here. If anyone objects, let's talk about it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:47, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I should say, I assumed there would be consensus because of the result of the move discussion, and because of the bird's cultural significance to Canada. However I can see an argument that UK English should be used instead, because the IOC's list prefers it for birds with colours in their name, but I think that argument is weak because the list prefers American English in some other cases. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:49, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Moved the {{Canadian English}} banner up above the Article history and the WikiProject banner wrappers, as per Wikipedia:Talk page layout. Great article, BTW, I've read it a couple times now. – Reidgreg (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Good article nomination

I've gone ahead and boldly nominated this article as a good article candidate. Although the page has been edited a lot recently and I'm not really a significant contributor, I think that the article is well-written, comprehensive, consistent, reliably sourced and reasonably stable other than the recent changes. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 02:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Bookmark

this Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

DYK

Following up on the recent successful GA promotion, why don't we carry on with a DYK? I've also never done a WP:DYK but it seems straightforward enough. I have a couple ideas for hooks:

• ... that the grey jay builds its nests in late winter, while snow is still deep in the forest? (this image)
• ... that a young grey jay stays with its parents to help care for the next season's fledglings? (this image, I can't find one of a juvenile with its parents)
• ... that the grey jay is also known as whisky jack, a name derived from Wisakedjak, a character in North American indigenous mythology? (this image)

All three of the images have a license which excludes "front-cover texts", which I'm not sure is compatible with DYK. There are other images at commons:Category:Perisoreus canadensis which could be substituted, or less preferably these could be submitted without images. Any thoughts on these, or other possible hooks? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:54, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

There are definitely some free images. I'd nominate and list all alternatives and let reviewer decide. All are interesting. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I looked into it. The "front-cover text" is a component of the license that can specify that certain text is required to be published along with the photo; releasing the photo under this license "with no front-cover texts" means that no such text is required for the image, so it ought to be compatible with the main page. It's compatible with Commons, so I think these are all ok. Submitted; see Template:Did you know nominations/Grey jay. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:34, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Attempts at Vandalism

Be aware there have been multiple attempts to vandalize this article, with the posting of graphic sexual images at the top of the article.BSOleader (talk) 09:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware, but what to do about the vandal? seems to be some bot that just reverts edits that delete the picture. tried to report it to anti-vandalism unit, not sure how it works. Can some admin temporarily just close this article and stop all editing?BirgittaMTh (talk) 09:18, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

It appears to be a single editor or two, so I blocked them. WP:AIV is the place to report them in the future. Or WP:RFPP is where to request page protections. Expect more, as usual for the main-page featured article. DMacks (talk) 09:25, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Causation

This article contains a number of "to.." and "because of .." statements. Seemingly, researchers have divined the inner workings of the birds' minds, or somebody is engaging in anthropomorphism. Shouldn't these causation statements at least be changed to correlations (or possibilities instead of definitive facts)? --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 22:13, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

IUCN

The intro says: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the grey jay a least-concern species. This uses too much space for the source, to be in the intro. The source/evaluator is not important at all. It is not information about the bird. It is only information about the information about the bird. Pripheral details like that should not be in the intro. The intro is to be short. Here that peripheral appears twice. I have seen the argument that the abbreviation needs to be introduced so that it can be used later. In this case that function does not work. The distance is too long between the occurrences. I have gone through all the FA and GA bird articles. Many do not mention IUCN. Many use the full name and many use only the acronym. Many used both. Taht is too extreme. I changed them. --Ettrig (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Grey jay is now the Canada Jay

The American Ornithological Society recently renamed the Grey Jay the Canada Jay, and I suggest we move the article to reflect this change. See: https://amornithnews.org/2018/05/23/name-change-of-gray-jay-back-to-the-original-common-name-of-canada-jay/ Megs (talk) 17:29, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe we normally follow the naming conventions of the IOC, and they have not (yet?) followed suit. It also seems they're due for an update, though. I can see a case for following the American society in this case, since the species is unique to North America, and obviously associated with Canada. CBC and the Globe & Mail are also covering the name change, and it's backed by two prominent ornithologists (one of whom previously contributed much of this article). I don't know, I guess it's worth opening up to a move discussion? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:48, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 18 June 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: although there is clear support for this move, the support is not in favor of making the move now; this position is in line with WP:NAMECHANGES. Per the consensus below, please reopen discussion when changes have been made and the new name is in use. Dekimasuよ! 16:22, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

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Grey jay → Canada jay – See the section directly above. It is being widely reported (refs below) that the American Ornithological Society has accepted a proposal to formally list this species as "Canada jay", reversing a 61-year-old naming decision that nobody seems to be sure was rational in the first place. It's also reported that the AOS will formally announce the change in next month's issue of The Auk, and that the IOC will likewise follow suit in their next semiannual update. Besides that formality, the species has very clearly strong national ties to Canada (as a candidate for its National Bird) and naming the article "Canada jay" solves the "grey/gray" disagreement (evident in the links below). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

References

• Valentine, Katie (25 May 2018). "The Gray Jay Will Officially Be Called the Canada Jay Again". Audubon.
• "The grey jay is becoming the Canada jay — but it's still not our national bird". CBC News. 22 May 2018.
• Pruden, Jana G. (21 May 2018). "Gray jay to reclaim its Canadian identity with name change". The Globe and Mail.

Support. I would wait until the IOC changes are officially made (just in case something odd happens), but that is the strong rumor....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:24, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Support when it becomes official - better to wait, we should only reflect the sources, not pioneer any usage. FunkMonk (talk) 10:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Support once official - for reasons outlined above Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:29, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Support - The Auk isn't yet in print but the article (59th supplement) is available on line so the change is official as far as AOS is concerned. But for consistency with our policy of using IOC names for species articles we should wait for their mid-year update to change the title. Craigthebirder (talk) 16:20, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Follow-up: the IOC published v8.2 of the World Bird List on 27 June 2018 (worldbirdnames.org). They did not update the name of this bird. Perhaps in v9.1 (Jan 2019). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Reopen. support move. The IOC world bird list committee was part of the International Ornithologists' Union, but they are now their own venture; following their pronouncements is merely convenient for article titles and content. Their approach has received some criticism from others in the field, and wikipedia being wedded to any single source is problematic. An announcement on a common name change in a long established and widely cited journal, The Auk, is a greater authority on what is 'official' and that ought to be followed. If the interest media attention has brought this bird also brings questions, the rationale for the usage here should be on the most solid ground. cygnis insignis 16:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Eventually support move. Drafts from the IOC are published on a regular and frequent basis. We wont have to wait until January, and I understand everyone's concerns. There is no tax authority that is perfect, but the IOC is the most comprehensive available, is the recommended source for Wikiproject Birds, and enough authorities use it to consider it reliable..…..Pvmoutside (talk) 00:45, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• For the record I support the consensus of the move discussion, which I read as "we will change when the IOC does". That course of action is supported by our current guidance on the matter. As for the guideline itself, I do share Cygnis insignis' concerns about using a sole source for all bird names, but doing so has helped resolve some significant naming disagreements since not all of the world's ornithological authorities follow the same rules or agree at the same time, as this species demonstrates. Change is slow, we can be slow too, it's okay. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Another update: the IOC published v9.1 of the World Bird List on 20 January 2019 (worldbirdnames.org) and have still not updated the common name of the species. However the AOC did in fact publish a correction to their own list in The Auk in July 2018, noting that "the name Gray [sic] Jay was incorrectly adopted" (emphasis added) in 1957. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:46, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

  A move to Perisoreus canadensis would resolve any discordance in the name, and the names that refer the subject of this page can be mentioned in an objective manner. Electing any other of the selection of descriptive and common names is elevating the same, in effect asserting that is the name of a species: grey jay, gray jay, Canada jay being front runners for some reason, in English, I suppose that French might be in the mix too. All this relies on one committee, who work hand in hand with wikipedia to make unnecessarily contentious assertions about yet another name for the species of bird; it irks me no end as an editor. cygnis insignis 16:25, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

References

• Another update:The IOC has FINALLY published (albeit a draft) of the common name change to Canada Jay. I'll wait until it becomes fully accepted there, but if anyone wants to go through the trouble of changing everything, I won't stop you.....Pvmoutside (talk) 00:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

New subsection under Relationship with humans: In literature?

Descriptions of the "Whiskey Jack" appear quite often in Grey Owl's writings and he was quite fond of the bird. How about a subsection that provides some quotations about their behavior from him? Here's an example from The Men of the Last Frontier:

This whiskey-jack is a small bird, about the size of a blackbird, but he has more mischief in his small body than there is in a whole bag of cats. He is a scamp, but a likeable rascal, at that. He mocks the calls of other birds and steals bait, or any small articles left around the camp. He loves human company, and, at the first smoke of a camp-fire, he appears mysteriously from nowhere, like a small grey shadow, and perches on a limb, generally right over the trapper's lunch place, knocking snow down his neck or into the cooking as he lights. He has a foolish little song he whistles which is supposed, no doubt, to charm the hunter into giving him a part of his meal. This he generally gets, but does not eat, carrying it away and cacheing it; so he is never full and stays until the last morsel has disappeared.

Dsiedler (talk) 10:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a featured article; nothing should be added to it without an inline citation to a reliable source. We would need an independent source which shows that Grey Owl's writings about the bird are considered important by literary reviewers, not just that he wrote them. Do you have such a source? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:41, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. I haven't got such a source. Glad I asked first... Dsiedler (talk) 16:07, 5 January 2024 (UTC)