group of people looking at pinyon pine cones

Counting cones near Virginia City in August! Here, volunteers are surveying for ripe (green) pinyon pine cones. Mapping these cones helps track this vital Pinyon Jay food source- a key piece of the conservation puzzle. #PinyonJay #ConservationInAction #CommunityScience #GBBO

Pinyon Jay fledgling in pinyon pine. Photo by Ned Bohman.

Pinyon Jay fledgling begging in the Sheep Range north of Las Vegas. Note the pale-yellow inner edge of bill (the gape), and the overall gray color. #PinyonJay #Nevada #birds

Pinyon Jay nest

#PinyonJay colonies vary in structure and spacing. In a typical colony, there's only 1 nest per tree, with 30-50ish nests, overall. During the 2024-2025 Arizona surveys, fewer nests were clustered together but instead were scattered throughout the home range. #ArizonaPinyonJays #birds

Joshua trees against a partly cloudy sky

After the snow and subsequent muddy roads, our #Nevada #PinyonJay surveyors journeyed south for their second tour to spend time in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge to explore the Sheep Range. They found themselves traveling through Joshua tree forest, transitioning to pinyon-juniper habitat.

A bundled up field crew poses mid-hike along a snowy dirt road through Pinyon Jay country

The 2025 Nevada Pinyon Jay crew began training on March 3rd. Monitoring sure got off to an interesting start with a surprise snowstorm (ok, not a TOTAL surprise, but it was sure more than we bargained for).

#PinyonJay #monitoring #Nevada

1/2

Pinyon Jay flock landing in pinyon and juniper, photographed in Elko County by Bobby Wilcox.

We’re celebrating another successful #PinyonJay #monitoring season! In 2025, we hiked & surveyed northern #Arizona, across #Nevada, and throughout #NewMexico's national forests. Our surveyors recorded sightings and behavior, and in NV and AZ also surveyed colony sites and documented nests.

#jays #jaysofnorthamerica #jaysinc #reservoirjays #reservoirdogs #bluejay #grayjay #stellersjay #pinyonjay #greenjay #scrubjay
#comic #cartoon #natureofbusiness #businessofnature #cladeandgenus #cladeandgenusltd

Digital painting of a pinyon jay flying. The bird is mostly blue, with brown/greyish wings.

Pinyon Jay digital painting

#pinyonjay #birdart #birds #digitalart

Pinyon Jay Extinction Projects Rage On BLM leaders never had the desire or will to do what it takes to preserve Sage-grouse populations. Sage-grouse plans make major concessions to industries,

"(The agencies) had a handy tree hate vocabulary ready to use – trees are encroaching, invading, water-sucking weeds, hazardous fuels, undesirable, uncharacteristic..." #BLM #Birds #Nature #PinyonJay #SageGrouse #LandManagement #Environment #PubllicLands #ForestFire 🧪

Pinyon Jay Extinction Projects Rage On BLM leaders never had the desire or will to do what it takes to preserve Sage-grouse populations. Sage-grouse plans make major concessions to industries,

it would appear TNC, BLM and USFS have a lot to answer for. #pinyonjay #BLM #USFS #natureconservancy #publiclands #extinction #sagegrouse

Pinyon Jay perched in pinyon, against a deep blue sky.

'Tis the season for #hiring! We have two #PinyonJay #job posts up and running - do you want to make a real difference in conservation? Love hiking and camping in beautiful and often rugged country? Excited to learn more about bird behavior and ecology? Check out our work in #AZ and #NV!

#birdjobs

First Bird of 2025 was the Pinyon Jay
#birds #pinyonjay

The first year I was shooting the flock of Pinyon Jays that live near me. It was flying over my fence in the snow to a birdfeeder. They have quickly become my favorite bird.
#Birds #pinyonjay #bluejay #corvid

Pinyon Jays are larger than the Scrub Jays and live in flocks between 150-500. The flocks in my area are around 200 or so. They are specialized to eat and distribute the Pinyon Pine nuts and are responsible for planting new trees in new areas.
#Pinyonjay #Bluejay #Corvid #bird

Pinyon Jay Conservation | Audubon Southwest Protecting one of the Intermountain West's most iconic species

Here you can read about all of Audubon Southwest’s work, for example, developing their own Pinyon Jay program. #PinyonJay #CommunityScience

southwest.audubon.or...

Lahontan Audubon Society members hike uphill.

Diane Wong-Kone, of Lahontan Audubon Society, led a #Jaywalk earlier this week here in the Reno area, but other Audubon Societies are also heavily involved. #PinyonJay

A crowd of Audubon Southwest volunteers in pinyon-juniper cheering for Pinyon Jays!

Local Audubon Societies have been crucial to the success of this Pinyon Jay #CommunityScience project, many of whom have developed their own #PinyonJay programs!

Lahontan Audubon Society group, looking at camera while standing on road through sagebrush.

Partners are also critical in building this #PinyonJay #communityscience program. Thanks to the many awesome people and groups who are collecting location and behavior data for this program!

The mystery of the pinyon jay: A bird species native to the West has declined dramatically—and we’re still trying to figure out why The pinyon jay population has decreased by some 70 percent in recent decades, but it’s not entirely clear why. Alan de Queiroz, a local science author, tells the story of how scientists—and c…

Alan de Queiroz recently wrote about his adventures with Pinyon Jays - including collecting data for Pinyon Jay Community Science Project! (Watch this space for upcoming #PinyonJay information, including how to get involved where you are - even outside of Nevada!) renonr.com/2024/02/29/t...