![]() ![]() ![]() Dan’s focus was on their social behaviours and their food-caching strategies. Dan was conducting his research in la réserve faunique de La Vérendrye in Québec, inspired by Rutter’s work in Algonquin. ![]() One of the seasonal naturalists that year was Dan Strickland, who had been an Algonquin Park naturalist the previous summer or two and was now studying Canada Jays (‘Geais Gris’) for his MSc thesis at the Université de Montréal. That summer, we naturalists often told the park visitors about the name change but also that the Native Algonquins had once called them whisky-jacks, which made for a good story. ![]() I must admit I was not really even aware of this as my field guide-the 3 rd edition of Peterson, published in 1947-called them Canada Jays and that’s what I would have called them but I had never seen one before. Russ was also furious with the AOU for changing the bird’s common name from Canada Jay to Gray Jay in its 1957 checklist. I was enthralled-I had no idea that the birds I had watched breeding in southern Ontario were not doing what all birds did. He had already discovered that they often travel in family groups, hoard food for the winter, and occupy year-round territories. Russ told me he had decided a few years earlier to start studying Canada Jays so that he could follow individuals through their lives. Two of those jays had colour-bands (WR, and YORL ), and this was a family group, Russ said. Russ made a whispery-squeaky sound and all three birds flew right up to us, one landing on Russ’s hand to get some food that he had brought with him just for that purpose. One day, as we walked along some abandoned railway tracks, 3 Canada Jays appeared at the edge of the woods. Rutter was a crusty old guy but we got on well and he often took me out birding, botanizing, hiking the trails where we would lead nature walks, and howling for wolves. Rutter, the only full-time park naturalist, who lived near the small town of Huntsville, a half hour west of the park. I arrived at Algonquin at the end of April where I met Russell J. Seasonal naturalists were hired to interact with the visitors who flooded the park in July and August during the public schools’ summer vacation. At the time, I had birded and bird-banded only in southwestern Ontario, so this was a chance to see some boreal species on their breeding grounds, species that I had only seen previously on migration or in winter, if at all-Common Loons, White-throated Sparrows, Saw-whet Owls, Pine Grosbeaks, Red Crossbills, Ravens, Three-toed Woodpeckers, and Gray Canada Jays.īecause I was no longer in school, I started work at Algonquin two months earlier than the other half dozen seasonal naturalists, mainly to get the museum’s specimen collections in order and to prepare for the onslaught of summer visitors. The park now gets more than a million visitors a year, concentrated mainly along the highway that runs east-west across its southern edge. This vast ‘wilderness’ area (7653 km 2) is only 3 hours by car from Ottawa, 4 from Toronto, and 5 from Montreal. Algonquin, established in 1893, was only the second provincial park to be created in Canada, and the first to be designated to protect a natural environment. The year I turned 21, I got my dream job: seasonal naturalist at Algonquin Provincial Park. ![]()
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