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  Profile

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  In flight

Clever Corvids

Island Scrub-Jay

Aphelocoma insularis

• legendary
• 92 km/h
• Vulnerable

Lives on one island and one island only. The most range-restricted bird in North America still on the route.

Population

~1,700–2,300 individuals (2008–2009 estimate; most recent published count)

Habitat

Oak chaparral and bishop pine woodland

Fun fact

The Island Scrub-Jay is the only landbird species in the continental United States found on just a single island, having evolved in isolation on California's Santa Cruz Island for roughly one million years.

Range

Endemic to Santa Cruz Island, California's Channel Islands (the only place it is found today; fossil/subfossil evidence suggests it formerly also occurred on nearby San Miguel and Santa Rosa Islands)

Diet

Omnivorous: acorns (cached in large numbers for later use — a single jay may cache several thousand per year), pine and grass seeds, insects and spiders (including catching flying insects mid-air), and occasionally small vertebrates such as lizards, snakes, and mice, plus eggs and nestlings of other birds

Size

0.33 m