It's time to comment on Western Scrub-Jays (WESJ) in Eastern WA or at least
our neck of the woods. The first Benton county record was reported on
November 6, 1996 in Kennewick - a jaw dropping event as we believed that the
closest population was in the Lyle area.

There was a record of a single bird in West Richland in 2005.

Since 2006 (and maybe before), there have been WESJ in Prosser. There are
several small family groups there and they are known to have produced young.

We do believe that Yakima county has regular occurrences now but we will
leave that to them to report on.

For our area it looks more like range expansion rather than invasion due to
poor acorn crop.

Bill and Nancy LaFramboise
Richland WA

<snip>
I think Wayne Weber pretty much nailed it with his comments on the
Western Scrub-Jay invasion this fall. I am attempting to tally these
"northerly" jays with the thought of trying to put this fall's event
into some sort of context numbers-wise. So keep the reports of Western
Scrub-Jays coming as far as I'm concerned. Eastern Washington is also
having a few "invade" over there. Interesting stuff!

Cheers and good birding,
Brad Waggoner
Bainbridge Island
mailto:wagtail at sounddsl.com
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