{"id":14251,"date":"2015-07-16T08:24:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T15:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14251"},"modified":"2015-07-16T08:24:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T15:24:44","slug":"wesakachak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=14251","title":{"rendered":"Wesakachak"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I encountered the Whisky Jack fifty years ago when camping in the high country. At the time, I had no idea what this jaunty bird had to do with whisky (or whiskey, as Americans style their beverage). Nothing, as it turns out. Whisky Jack is just a transliteration from Wesakachak, the name in Cree (and related languages), where the bird seems to have been named after an amiable trickster hero (or possibly, it was the other way around). <\/p>\n

So Wesakachak was the bird’s name in Canada for centuries. Along the way it gained the more formal name of Canada Jay, which does make geographic sense as the bird’s range lies primarily in this country. But, then the American Ornithologists’ Union decided it should be called Gray Jay (which really should be spelled Grey Jay in Canada) and we went along with it. If you want to find it in a guidebook, look under Gray Jay, but I think I will stick with Wesakachak.<\/p>\n

Any way you spell it, one of the delights of\u00a0the sub-alpine forest is an encounter with\u00a0this amiable trickster. If it happens, it is probably not because you sought the bird; rather, it is because the bird sought you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is one of a number of Wesakachaks that came to investigate visitors to its realm.
\"\"<\/p>\n

“Why are you here? More to the point, did you bring food?”
\"\"<\/p>\n

The bird is soon off, but only on a short flight to a nearby perch.
\"\"<\/p>\n

Here is the issue: If you brought food you are interesting; if not, well….
\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I encountered the Whisky Jack fifty years ago when camping in the high country. At the time, I had no idea what this jaunty bird had to do with whisky (or whiskey, as Americans style their beverage). Nothing, as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14251"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14277,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14251\/revisions\/14277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}