MAGPIES, JAYS, CROWS: PIN YON JAY 
499 
hundred and fifty birds was found on the southeast slope of the Black 
Mountains at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. Many nests were 
started, always about eight feet up in scrub oaks. They were made 
of “coarse sticks with always an inner lining of soft velvety weed” 
and other materials; and already contained eggs, the birds having 
just begun to lay. On April 7, on the canyon side at the V + T Ranch, 
many young Pinyon Jays were out in the trees, and on May 5, at 
Willow Spring in the Chuchillo Mountains, numerous young and one 
nest were found. A very late set of eggs was taken June 5, 1882, 
near Santa Fe (Goss, 1883, pp. 43-44), and on October 7, 1916, in the 
pinyons twenty-seven miles northwest of Magdalena, Mr. Ligon 
was surprised to find young just leaving the nest, and others dead in 
- the nests, doubtless killed by the cold rains. 
In northern Santa Fe County, Mr. Jensen found that the nesting 
season extended from February to June. On account of the roving 
habits of the birds he says it is good luck to find their nests, as they seem 
never in the same locality twice. On May 18, 1918, he found one 
nest with fresh eggs and on March 19, 1921, a colony of thirteen nests 
with large young. On March 15, 1922, he located a colony of seventeen 
nests, covering about ten acres, all with fresh eggs. The birds nesting 
in colonies, Mr. Jensen says, usually breed much earlier than the single 
pairs. The birds sit so close they can be touched. 
At Lake Burford in late May and early June, Doctor Wetmore 
met with small parties of half a dozen or more flying in the open or 
working through the pinyons. But on June 14, a flock of about a 
hundred appeared and fed during the last week of Doctor Wetmore’s 
stay among the sage-grown knolls, where they “walked about quickly, 
holding themselves upright, with heads very high. . . A con¬ 
siderable number of these birds were young of the year and some, 
though well grown were still being fed by their parents.” In color 
they were distinctly grayer than the adults and their call note was “a 
persistent quay-quay, quay-quay , that at once attracted attention” 
(1920a, p. 402). 
Throughout the fall, the Pinyon Jay has been reported in large 
flocks from various localities, its presence depending on the pinyon 
crop and water. In late September, 1905, from the Mesa Gallinas 
south to Magdalena, Mr. Hollister found it “probably the most con¬ 
spicuous bird of the region.” From daybreak until about nine o’clock 
each morning and again toward evening compact flocks of from a 
dozen to fifty or more were flying about from mesa to mesa. In the 
Bear Spring Mountains they were especially abundant. In the middle 
of October, 1909, west of Chloride, Major Goldman found a large 
flock drinking from Chloride Creek. They “took alarm and flying 
farther up, many of the birds began drinking again from the stream. 
