Although the Pinyon Jay placed second in Audubon's Southwest Bird of the Year 2024 contest, this contestant gets stellar scores for its memorable personality and congeniality., making it December's Bird of the Month.

It was a picture-perfect Colorado Plateau day…until my mountain bike brakes failed.

Crumpled in an uninjured heap, I could feel my teenage son glowering down as he kindly suggested that I walk the bike back to the car. While I dusted off, he offhandedly reported that he heard “those laughing birds,” and I perked up! Before I could probe further, he rolled off at high speed and I began my “walk of shame” back to the trailhead. I was now on high alert for a flash of blue or tell-tale vocalizations. 

The call of the Pinyon Jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) can be likened to a plaintive laughing “Ha Ha Ha Ha” but unfortunately their status is no laughing matter.  Long-term drought, climate change, and habitat conversions have resulted in astonishing Pinyon Jay population declines. From 1967–2015, populations fell by an estimated 83.5%, and further losses seem imminent.

Considered an obligate resident of Pinyon Juniper woodlands and adjacent shrub/grasslands throughout the intermountain west, this intelligent and raucous corvid has long captivated humans. Highly colonial, flocks of several hundred birds were impossible to ignore in their foraging flights. Known colloquially as the “Blue Crow,” this corvid had little use for farm fields, passing over them in search of pinon. Pinon nuts are full of fat and protein—nutritious for both birds and mammals—and they are heavy, so the tree relies on animal transport for reseeding. The trees’ second strategy for continued survival is to produce seeds on a schedule that includes “mast years” in which there is such an overabundance of nuts that even all the hungry birds and animals cannot consume them all. Pinyon Jays cache seeds in the ground, and those that are not retrieved might become baby trees. People long ago learned that the jays knew the best nut trees and had some insight into the trees’ unwritten production schedule.

Nearly 40 percent of Audubon Southwest Bird of the Year voters voted for the Pinyon Jay Bird of the Year. And for good reason. This bird needs our help!  

Recent decades have seen unprecedented rates of change in climate, rainfall, and land use regimes. Our arid west has become more so while temperatures ramp up. Precious grasslands suffer shrub encroachment due to grazing pressures and invasive plant establishment, and meanwhile trees are stressed by drought and pests. Land managers are operating in unprecedented times and need to protect both grasslands and forests all with an eye to fire safety. In the case of the Pinyon Jay, data is badly needed, and it is needed across the birds’ considerable range, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. We need to identify stronghold areas for the birds for protection and enhancement, and to document historically occupied areas that are now devoid of jays. We need to look for the birds across their range, and we need to do it right now. Please consider helping us! If you can ID a Pinyon Jay—we want you!

The Great Basin Bird Observatory (GBBO) recognized Pinyon Jay declines early, and were instrumental in forming the multi-agency Pinyon Jay Working Group. In addition to focused research, GBBO devised an innovative, GIS-based community science program and Audubon joined the effort last year.  Using smart phones, observers can report detailed info on Pinyon Jays in real time. It’s free, fun, and provides badly needed data.  Getting involved is easy, learn more here. You’ll need to create a username with the ending “_ASW” (example: “PeterPinyon_ASW”) so we identify you as an Audubon Southwest community scientist. Thank you in advance for getting involved and spreading the word.

Interested in a more intensive experience? Currently only available in Arizona, you can sign up to “adopt a trail” –a roughly 1 km transect at a predetermined, high priority site three times annually. After signing up as described above, you will have an option to see and select a transect and to add to a temporal understanding of bird activity by visiting the same place multiple times.  

Back to the trail: on my embarrassing trek to the car, broken bike in tow, I heard them. Seven calling Pinyon Jays came flying across my trail. They looked like hope. And that’s what you look like to birds.