Canada, meet your national bird.

With 450 species in the country to choose from, Canadian Geographic’s decision was made neither lightly nor quickly.

This national debate has been running since January 2015, in fact. But after weighing the opinions and preferences of tens of thousands of Canadians, as well as the expertise of our National Conservation Partners at Bird Studies Canada and other ornithologists and conservationists, as well as cultural experts and Indigenous Peoples, that list was narrowed to five birds. And one finalist best met all reasonable criteria.
    
We give you the gray jay. Also known as the whiskey jack or Canada jay, it is Canadian Geographic’s official recommendation for National Bird of Canada.

Why the gray jay is our newest national symbol

• This member of the corvid family (along with crows, ravens and blue jays) was known as the “Canada jay” to English speakers for 200 years. In 1957, the American Ornithologists’ Union decided that, based on a nomenclatural system they no longer use, the species should be called “gray jay” — at least for scientific literature and field guides. Meanwhile, its Latin name is Perisoreus canadensis, and in French it is Mésangeai du Canada.

• The gray jay is found in every province and territory, but is not already a provincial or territorial bird. Several of the other front-runners in the National Bird Project, meanwhile, already had this designation, including the common loon (Ontario), the snowy owl (Quebec), the black-capped chickadee (New Brunswick) and the common raven (Yukon).

• Not only has the gray jay never been recorded outside of North America, the vast majority of its range is in Canada, with only a small percentage crossing into Alaska and the western mountains of the United States. The species’ preferred habitat is Canada’s boreal and mountain forests — ecozones that stretch from coast to coast and into the North, blanketing nearly two-thirds of the country.