Bird in California

One of the days of my vacation, we took a really neat trip to visit the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. First off, the museum was really nice. I felt like I grew up with Mr. Schulz (in a way I did), as I was a big fan of the Peanuts as a kid. For some reason, I can vividly remember one of my first drawings that I was proud of was a copy of Snoopy. So the visit brought back lots of good fun with those Peanuts characters. In addition it was neat to learn a little more about Schulz of which I knew very little. To see some of his original artwork up close like that was awesome. To see how his linework could emote the subtle nuances of attitude - wow. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention... the architecture of the museum was fantastic. I have been noticing architecture more and more and this one I really liked. Modern museum feel to it, yet it also had a lived in, homey feeling to it. A Nice blend.
(I also enjoyed hearing my sister giggling in the near empty museum as she read some of the comics ;)


So after visiting the ice rink and small cafe, we were just getting into the car, when I caught the movement of some birds in the tree. I tried to take a mental picture of it so I could later identify it. When I got back to Sis's home, I looked it up. At the time, I was 90% sure I had ID'd it as an Island Scrub Jay. I was pretty sure that it wasn't a Western Scrub Jay.
But just now, I was looking up some of the info on wikipedia and now I'm not so sure. Apparently the reason why it's called an "Island" scrub Jay, is because it only lives on Santa Cruz Island. But at the time, I would have sworn it was an Island Jay. Oh well, I'll stick to it for now, but unless someone from Santa Rosa can confirm that they too have seen these Island Jay's then it's probably a western scrub jay. (note: the photo I pulled from wikipedia and is of the Island Scrub Jay).

I saw a few more California native birds, but I've not unpacked my moleskin notebook yet, so I'll try to post those later.