Florida scrub jays

One of my main goals on my biology field trip to coastal central Florida was to observe and photograph Florida scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens). This is a threatened species that is endemic to Florida, and is a separate species from the western scrub jay. Florida scrub jays are known for their behavior of “cooperative breeding.” Young jays from previous years assist their parents in raising younger siblings. I teach about this behavior in my Animal Behavior course, so I wanted to see Florida scrub jays in their natural habitat, which I did at the Pine Flatwoods Trail within Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Here is the Pine Flatwoods Trail

The birds are not easy to observe; they occupy a habitat that offers protection from predators (oak scrub, which is a successional stage of dense, low-growing vegetation maintained by periodic fires).

Pine trees will eventually shade out the oak scrub, so the periodic fires prevent the pine forests from doing so. At Merritt Island NWR, they intentionally burn parts of the refuge to promote scrub jay conservation.

You can clearly see the oak scrub on either side of the trail.

In spite of the habitat conditions, scrub jays are naturally curious and unafraid of humans, so individual birds would perch in dead pine snags or the tops of scrub oaks, and scold me with screechy alarm calls.

Because they live in family units, sometimes several birds at a time would be perched together.

I visited the Pine Flatwoods area of MINWR on four successive mornings, and learned something new each day. On one day, I was able to easily distinguish between adults and juveniles – the juveniles have brown heads and the adults (even the non-breeding “helpers”) have blue heads.

I didn't know it when I arranged this trip, but July is when the juveniles from the current year have fledged, so the families have grown, and bird biologists survey to assess population growth.

The helpers assist the breeding adults in a variety of ways, including watching for predators, defending the family territory against intruders from neighboring families, foraging and caching food, and feeding the babies.