PIN YON JAY 303 



looked like migrations. These flights, which occur in both spring and 

 fall, seem to have no definite north or south direction at either season 

 but are quite as often seen moving either east or west, or in other direc- 

 tions. These are probably not migrations in the strict sense of the 

 word but rather mass movements to or from breeding grounds or from 

 one feeding ground to another. The fact that the birds fly in large 

 flocks, and often for a long time in one direction, leads to the impression 

 that they are migrating. There is, however, a limited migration in the 

 northern portion of its range, where Bendire (1895) says that it is 

 "only a summer visitor, migrating regularly." 



Nesting. — Pinyon jays prefer to breed in large or small colonies on 

 the foothills or mountain slopes below 9,000 feet, placing their nests 

 in the pinyons, where they straggle down the slopes toward the desert 

 scrub areas, or in junipers, which grow in such places, or in scrub 

 oaks; the nests are usually not more than 10 or 12 feet from the ground 

 and often lower, though James B. Dixon tells me that "one colony 

 had nests high in the pines, 25 to 50 feet oflt the ground." J. C. Braly 

 (1931) found a large colony nesting near Grandview, Oreg., of which 

 he says : "These nests were all in small junipers from three to seven 

 feet above the ground. During our investigations [elsewhere?] we 

 found over fifty nests of these birds, the great majority in juniper trees 

 from three to eighteen feet up, while a few nests were found in yellow 

 pine trees up to eighty-five feet." Sometimes three occupied nests were 

 found in one tree. 



In Dawson County, Mont., E. S. Cameron (1907) saw no evidence 

 of these birds breeding in colonies and found only two nests, one of 

 which he describes as follows: 



The pair were first noted to be carrying twigs on May 19, at which date the 

 nest was about half-finished, both birds assisting in its construction- Without 

 the guidance of the birds it is unHkely that I should have found the nest at all, 

 placed, as it was, near the extremity of a thick pine bough and completely 

 screened from observation except from above within the tree. The nest was of 

 large size with a smaller interior cup, the whole of the exterior, together with a 

 platform on which the cup rested, being composed entirely of dead greasewood 

 sticks and a few rootlets. The width across the sticks was 14 inches, and the 

 height of the nest 8 inches. The cup was very strongly made of dead grass, 

 pulled by the birds into a material like tow, and so thickly matted together, that 

 it remained intact when nearly all the surrounding sticks had been blown away. 

 Some dead thistle leaves were woven into the rim. The inner cup was SYi inches 

 in diameter and 2y2 inches deep. 



Mrs. Bailey (1928) says that the nests are "deep, bulky, and com- 

 pactly built, with a framework of twigs and shreds of bark supporting the 

 deep, well felted cup; made variously of finer shreds of bark, plant 

 fibers, fine rootlets, weeds, wool, hair, dry grass, and a few feathers." 



