CROWS, MAGPIES AND JAYS 



75 



PINON JAY (Cyanocephalus cyanocepha- 

 lus) 



When traveling in the far Western States at 

 an altitude of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet, where the 

 sagebrush ridges and valleys are decorated with 

 scattering juniper and pinon, if you should chance 

 to see a compact flock of birds wheeling about 

 the landscape it might be interesting to stop and 

 examine them with your binoculars. It may well 

 be that you have come upon a foraging party of 

 "blue crows," which the books refer to as piiion 

 jays. They are rather short, stumpy birds, thus 

 being somewhat different in form from the typi- 

 cal jay. Unquestionably they are the most noisy 

 denizens of the regions they inhabit. 



Pinon j ays are sociable at all times of the year. 

 To feed, they often gather in flocks of hundreds. 

 When thus assembled, feeding on the ground, 

 those in the rear continually rise and fly over 

 their companions in front. In a kind of flattened, 

 hooplike formation the flock goes rolling across 

 the country. Loud chattering notes are contin- 

 uous, and an advancing company may be heard 

 long before the birds come into view. Their 

 notes are of many kinds. About the nest they 

 are low and soft, soothing and reassuring. There 

 is a single harsh, guttural, rasping call fre- 

 quently uttered as the birds fly about the trees. 

 Also there are many squeaks and clucks and 

 chatters which strongly suggest the sounds pro- 

 duced by the eastern blue jay. 



Because of the wild, unsettled country usually 

 inhabited by pifion jays, and of the fact that they 

 are erratic in their movements, and more or less 

 local in their distribution, comparatively few bird 

 students have been privileged to witness their 

 nesting habits. Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey, 

 who has had long experience with birds in the 

 western wilderness, has given us a picture of the 

 season, location and conditions of their nesting, 

 as seen by others. In part she has written : 



"In 1913, west of the Rio Grande, on the San 

 Mateo and Gila River Forest Reserves, Mr. 

 Ligon found them constant residents, wintering 

 in flocks, nesting in colonies, roosting in thick 

 tall pines, generally on canyons, and meriting the 

 name of 'the most noisy bird in the southwest.' 

 He says they nest generally from March i to 31, 

 in gray live oaks among the pinions, though oc- 

 casionally in pifions, even where the oaks can be 

 had. On February 10, 1913, he noted that the 

 birds showed 'nesting inclinations, flying two and 

 three together.' On February 17, while the 

 ground was still half covered with snow, on the 

 southwest side of Black Mountain in the Datil 

 Forest, at about 7,500 feet, he found one nest 

 about complete and others under construction, 

 in scattered scrub oaks on a steep grassy canyon 

 side. There were more than 50 birds in pairs 

 and flocks mingling and scattering and flying 

 about noisily. On March 3, he returned to the 

 colony and found nests in almost all the scrub 

 oaks of sufficient size, but never more than one 

 in a tree. One, half completed, was in a juniper. 

 The birds, slow to leave their nests, finally did 

 so noisily. As it had snowed many times since 

 his first visit, the nests were damp from melted 

 snow. Nearly all contained four eggs, but one 

 had five. The birds were continually going and 



coming to their feeding grounds, where the main 

 body stayed bunched." 



Piiion jays breed chiefly in piiion and juniper 

 belts in the mountains, from central Washington, 

 Idaho, and central Montana south to northern 

 Baja California, Arizona, southern New Mexico 

 and western Texas, and from the Sierra-Cascade 

 ranges east to the eastern base of the Rocky 

 Mountains and northwestern Nebraska. 



CLARK'S NUTCRACKER (Nucifraga Co- 

 lumbiana) 



Herders who drive their sheep to the higher 

 grazing grounds in the Western States, guides 

 who conduct hunting or fishing parties up to the 

 great plateaus and about the shoulders of the 

 towering mountains, and wandering miners, all 

 will give you bits of conflicting information con- 

 cerning the habits of the Clark's nutcracker. 



From such men of the open one will hear much 

 that, with patience, he can readily observe for 

 himself, for these large gray and black-winged 

 inhabitants of the wilderness will come to one's 

 very tent door. Rarely they become so bold as 

 the jays of the neighborhood, and they will not 

 take as many liberties with your belongings, espe- 

 cially if you are at hand. However, they will 

 come to the camp for food, and, with a little dis- 

 cretion, can be studied quite at leisure. 



The nutcrackers make a very pretty picture, 

 walking sedately about, much after the manner 

 of crows. Now and then they may be seen chas- 

 ing insects like a domestic hen, for they are al- 

 most as much at home on the ground as in the 

 trees. They consume great numbers of grass- 

 hoppers and the large, wingless crickets of the 

 mountains. At times they chase butterflies, catch- 

 ing them on the wing. They also cling to the 

 sides of tree trunks and peck in the bark for 

 grubs, as do the woodpeckers. They raid the 

 cones of the pine trees for their seeds and feed 

 on pinon nuts, which constitute a staple and very 

 important article of their diet. 



The nutcrackers are birds of the mountain 

 heights and in summer delight to play along the 

 tree line. In many places they gather in the fir 

 belt for purposes of nesting. Wheelock says of 

 them : "Their nests were all rather bulky, com- 

 posed first of a platform of twigs, each one nearly 

 a foot in length, so interlaced that to pull one 

 was to disarrange the mass. Upon this, and held 

 in place by the twigs at the sides, was the nest — 

 a soft warm hemisphere of fine strips of bark, 

 matted with grasses and pine needles until it was 

 almost like felt. This is stiffened, bound, and 

 made firmer by coarse strips of bark around the 

 outside, these also binding it to the twigs and 

 helping hold it to the limb. So firmly is the 

 whole put together and fastened to the branch, 

 that no storm can move it from its foundations." 



The birds breed early in the year, when there 

 is little travel in the heavy snows of the upper 

 ranges, so their nests are rarely seen. Egg-lay- 

 ing begins in February or March. Incubation 

 requires eighteen days. Their breeding range 

 extends from southern Alaska, southwestern Al- 

 berta, and western South Dakota south to the 

 high mountains of Baja California, Arizona, and 

 New Mexico. 



