Gray Jay

web grey jay AK1I6283.jpg

Banff National Park, Canada. Like other members of their wider family, the Gray Jay is a particularly intelligent, curious bird. They have attracted various nicknames: “Camp Robber,” to name one, and “Whisky Jack,” derived from an Algonquin name, Wiskedjak, for a mischievous trickster god. Mythologically (and mammalogically!) speaking, we can compare the more southerly Coyote figure, and even Reynard the Fox of medieval European tradition.