Tweets,

The very local occurrence of Gray Jays at lowland elevations in the Pacific
NW may be for the same reason a variety of bird species (N. Saw-whet-Owl,
Winter Wren, Brown Creeper, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Black-throated Blue,
Blackburnian and Canada Warblers) all occur well below their usual limits
(for the southeastern U.S.) in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in North
Carolina. "Not only is it the only virgin forest in North Carolina, it is
one of the few-and the largest-untouched stands in eastern North America.
It exceeds 3,800 acres and sits within an old-growth wilderness of over
14,000 acres" (Lee, D. 1997.Joyce Kilmer's Birds: new thoughts on an
ancient forest. Wildlife in North Carolina Vol. 61, No. 61).

In this article, Lee states the above species occur as low as 2,200' feet
in this forest, yet elsewhere in much of the southeast, they usually occur
between 4,000 to 6,000.' Lee concludes that "prior to logging these species
were not restricted to tops of sky islands as they are today. In the
Southern Appalachians they were probably found in any number of forest
types, and by occurring as low as 2,000' they tell us that they were not
always restricted to isolated relict populations but formerly occurred
throughout the entire mountain chain." Lee concludes about this forest: "we
were looking at not just a primeval forest; this was intact stable fauna.
It was a glimpse of what the midland low-elevation faunal composition of
the Southern Appalachians must have been prior to European contact."

Were Gray Jays "all-over-the-place" in the ancient forests that blanketed
the lowlands of the Pacific NW prior to us Europeans arriving on the scene?

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato WA