The bird that John James Audubon called the Florida Jay is now commonly known as the Florida scrub-jay. “This beautiful and lively bird is a constant resident in the south-western parts of Florida, from which country it seldom if ever removes to any great distance. It is never seen in the State of Louisiana, far less in that of Kentucky, and when Charles Bonaparte asserts that it occurs in these districts, we must believe that he has been misinformed. It is so confined to the particular portions of Florida which it inhabits, that even on the eastern shores of that peninsula few are to be seen. I have never observed it in any part of Georgia, or farther to the eastward.” Out of however few Florida scrub-jays that Audubon and Charles Bonaparte (1808-1857) observed, they are down today to a few thousand. Almost all of them are banded for identification and tracked as an endangered species.
Plate 87 – Florida Jay
Plate 87 of the first edition of "Birds of America" by John James Audubon.