Jay WESTERN BIRDS 



juniper belt of mountains from central Washington, 

 Idaho, and central Montana south to northern Lower 

 California, Arizona, southern New Mexico, and western 

 Texas, and from the Sierra-Cascade Range east to the 

 eastern base of the Rocky Mountains; casual on the 

 coast of California and in eastern Nebraska and Kansas. 



It is a little smaller than the California Jay, being 

 about eleven and one-half inches long, and, like that 

 bird, has no crest. The general color is a grayish-blue, 

 with head brighter, and throat streaked with white; bill 

 cylindrical. 



These birds are associated with the life of the sage and 

 juniper-covered foothills, where grow, also, the pinon 

 pines. Here, in juniper and pifion, they place their nest 

 from five to fifteen feet from the ground, making it of 

 twigs and sagebrush and lining it with finer rootlets and 

 grasses. They are fond of nuts and berries found in this 

 desert region as well as grain and grasshoppers. They 

 do not seem to molest other birds, or their eggs. 



Like others of their tribe, they are jovial fellows, 

 banding together in large flocks in the fall and foraging 

 about in a most erratic way, here one day, and gone the 

 next. During the winter of 1914-15 a small band of them 

 visited Los Angeles in the foothill region near the 

 Arroyo Seco, their high-pitched, querulous peek, peek, 

 whee, whee, being heard from the oak trees where they 

 foraged, or as they wheeled in compact body through 

 the air. One habit they have that has been likened to 

 the Blackbirds and that is their way of feeding from the 

 ground in large flocks, those in the rear flying over the 

 others and settling in front of them to forage, thus giving 

 all a fair chance. 



Sometimes in the piiion groves they are found in com- 

 pany with the Clarke's Nutcrackers, but they never 

 follow them in their vertical migration to the high alti- 

 tudes. Because the pine nuts furnish the greater part of 



114 



