The Florida Scrub Jay Habitat
The Florida scrub jay is a striking blue and white bird that lives exclusively in its home state, the only bird species in Florida that does not live anywhere else on the planet. As the name suggests, it lives in scrub land. Wild Florida scrub jays are curious and docile toward people. The birds are endangered, and protected by the state, but their numbers continue to decline.
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Scrub Habitat
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Florida scrub jays live near land with nutrient-poor soil that has seasonally high rainfall and occasional droughts and wildfires. While other species of scrub jays live in the American and Mexican west, Florida scrub jays prefer to stay close to home.
Family Life
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Family life is central to Florida scrub jays. They mate for life and create small but tight-knit families that require approximately 25 acres of habitat to sustain them, although some family territories can be as small as 5 acres or as large as 50. Young birds live with their parents for a year or more, and help to raise the next generation of babies before moving out.
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Food
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Florida scrub jays can thrive in untouched scrub land, as this environment provides a multitude of insects and other invertebrates that make up the majority of the birds' diets during the spring and summer months. They also eat local fruits and nuts, like acorns, helping to disseminate plant seeds that perpetuate the landscape, as well as occasionally feeding on small reptiles, amphibians and mammals.
Threats
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A small amount of development can actually boost Florida scrub jay numbers, as they supplement their natural diet in the scrub with a small amount of food that comes from humans. However, as an area becomes heavily developed, Florida scrub jays are stressed, and even if their nesting area is not destroyed, the majority cannot successfully rear young in a suburban environment.
Protection
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The Endangered Species Act protects endangered and threatened species like the Florida scrub jay from removal from their habitat. However, despite the species-specific protection that the bird enjoys, the continued destruction of its habitat for Florida's growing suburbs means that their numbers have continued to decline on a regular basis.
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References
- Photo Credit florida scrub jay image by Robert Ulph from Fotolia.com
