498 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Clovis, in extreme eastern New Mexico, far from timber, a great flock was seen flying 
noisily among the freight cars of the railroad yards (Ligon).] 
A bird described from Santa Fe by McCall as Cyanocorax cassinii proved to be 
the same as Cyanocephalus cyanocephalus. 
Nest. —In colonies, in pinyon pines, junipers, or oaks, generally 5 to 12 feet from 
the ground; deep, bulky, and compactly 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. Eggs: 
Usually 4 to 5, bluish white, sometimes covered with minute brown specks; at others, 
wreathed about the larger end with spots and blotches. 
Food— Principally pinyon nuts in their season, but also yellow pine and black 
pine nuts, cedar and juniper berries, small seeds, various wild berries, and insects, 
especially grasshoppers. On isolated ranches, in narrow valleys where their search 
for pinyons brings them close to cultivated crops, they sometimes do serious harm; 
but in general the pinyon nuts supply their principal food (Kalmbach). 
General Habits. —Long straggling flocks of blue, short-tailed 
Pinyon Jays trailing over the nut pines and junipers calling softly 
pin-yoney pin-yoney have become delightfully familiar to all field 
workers in the pinyon belt. But until recently, little has been known 
of the actual breeding habits of these most interesting Blue Crows, as 
they are called locally from their resemblance to the crows in many 
of their actions and habits. 
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 in 
canyons, and meriting the name of “the most noisy bird of the south¬ 
west.” He says they nest generally from March 1-31, in gray live 
oaks among the pinyons, though occasionally in pinyons, 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 con¬ 
struction, in scattered scrub oaks on a steep grassy canyon side. There 
were more than fifty 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. 
On March 4, south of Black Mountain, at about 7,500 feet, Mr. 
Ligon discovered a second, smaller nesting colony. Many of the eggs 
were slightly incubated. On March 28, a third colony, of perhaps a 
