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Florida scrub-jays are cooperative breeders that defend year-round, all-purpose territories [5]. Territories contain a single pair of monogamous breeders, and often one or more young from previous years that remain at home and help rear young during subsequent breeding seasons. Territories are large, averaging 25 acres where the habitat approaches optimal conditions, and their size varies in response to habitat quality, population density, and group size [5].
Florida scrub-jays spend virtually their whole lives in a matrix of scrub and bare sand. Both habitat features are critical to their presence. Scrub provides cover and nest sites. It affords the sentinel posts that are integral to the predator avoidance system of Florida scrub-jays. Jays forage in and about the shrubbery, visually searching for moving or hidden prey. From August through December, each jay harvests 6,500 - 8,000 acorns from oaks within its territory and caches them mostly in bare sand patches, also within its territory [1]. Because of caching, acorns are consumed throughout the year, but are especially important during winter and early spring when insect populations are depressed.
COVER REQUIREMENTS :
Optimal scrub
habitat is a mosaic of oak-dominated shrubs approximately
3 - 7 feet tall, with interspersed patches of bare sand and
few overstory trees. These conditions normally develop
2 - 4 year post-fire and can last 10 - 15 years thereafter.
Scrub less than 3 - 4 years post-fire provides inadequate
cover and nest sites. Scrub greater than 20 years post-fire
is tall and provides few bare sand openings. It supports
a number of species that prey upon Florida scrub-jays that
are otherwise absent or less abundant in shorter, open scrub.
Scrub with > 15% pine cover is not optimal, but can
still be utilized by the jays [11].
MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS :
Florida scrub is a rare and vanishing ecosystem [2]. Agricultural conversion and residential
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