CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: The Canada Jay: Ready for Winter

Paragraph A

Campers in Canada’s northern forests sometimes find that they have company at breakfast. A grey bird slightly larger than a robin, with fluffy feathers and a short black bill, lands on a nearby branch, watches for a moment and then swoops down to snatch a piece of bannock or pancake, sometimes straight from a person’s hand. This is the Canada jay, a bird known by many names. Generations of trappers and campers have called it the “camp robber,” and another common name, “whisky jack,” is an English version of a name used in Cree and related languages. For several decades its official English name was the gray jay, until scientists restored its older name, Canada jay, in 2018.

Paragraph B

Unlike most of the songbirds that nest in the boreal forest, the Canada jay does not fly south for the winter. Instead, it survives the cold by planning ahead. Through the summer and fall, a single bird may hide thousands of pieces of food, including berries, mushrooms, insects and scraps of meat. It coats each item in sticky saliva from its unusually large salivary glands, then wedges it behind loose bark, among needles or into clumps of lichen on branches well above the ground, where snow is less likely to bury it. Months later, the bird remembers where many of these stores are hidden and returns to them when other food is scarce.

Paragraph C

These stores make possible one of the most surprising habits of any Canadian bird. Canada jays begin nesting in late winter, and females often lay their eggs in February or March, when temperatures can still be well below freezing. The nest is a thick cup lined with feathers and fur, and the female stays on it almost constantly while her mate brings her food from their hidden supplies. By early summer, the young birds are strong enough to compete with one another, and usually only the most dominant one is allowed to stay with its parents for its first winter. Its brothers and sisters are driven away and must try to join other pairs or find a territory of their own.

Paragraph D

In 2016, after a public survey and a debate among experts, Canadian Geographic magazine named the Canada jay as its choice for Canada’s national bird. Supporters pointed out that it lives in every province and territory, that it stays through the winter, and that, unlike the loon or the snowy owl, it is not already the official bird of any province. The federal government, however, has never officially adopted it. Meanwhile, researchers who have studied Canada jays in Ontario’s Algonquin Park for decades have recorded a decline in the number of birds there. One explanation they have proposed is that warmer autumns may cause stored food to spoil before winter, leaving parents with less to feed their young.