Joann Merritt's Essays

The Naked-Nose Blueheads
December, 2000

What’s in a name? Well, let’s see. The Pinyon Jays that Midnats have found, and sometimes not found, this fall have the Genus name Gymnorhinus which is from the Greek gymnos, naked, and rhis, nose, which refers to its nostrils being exposed, thus bare of feathers or naked. The species name cynocephalus is also from two Greek words kyanos, blue, and kephale, head. The Pinyon Jay’s nicknames include Blue Crow, Maximilian’s Crow, Cassin’s Jay, and my two favorites The Prince Maximilian’s Jay and Pinonero. Quite a bit of information can be gleaned from names alone.

In The Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America by John Cassin, originally published in 1856, he tells of the discovery of this bird in 1883 by Alexander Philip Maximilian. He concluded that these jays were not fruit-eaters but were carnivorous and ate reptiles “particularly the various species of Phrynosoma, or Horned Frogs, as they are called with but little propriety, which abound in Western North America.” These would have been the Mountain Short-horned Lizards, the only phrynosoma species that live that far north.

In 1852 T. Charlton Henry, a doctor in the United States Army noticed the jays around Ft. Webster, New Mexico. He, too, says their favorite food is lizards but doesn’t name the species, just states that their food appears to be exclusively reptiles which they “killed with great readiness and devoured.” More recent publications list pinyon nuts, pine seeds, grass seeds, grasshoppers, beetles, eggs and young of small birds as well as fruits and berries.

Whatever the Pinyon Jays have for Christmas dinner in Midland they won’t be able to dine on our dwindling population of Texas Horned Lizards who are safely hibernating underground for the winter.

Drive on Cardinal Lane between Midkiff and Midland Drive to perchance see the several blue shades of the Pinyon Jay’s plumage and hear the unusual calls of these rare visitors from the mountains.

The Pinyon Jays calls are softer than the raucous sound of Bluejays and have been variously described as nasal, laughing and mewing. Hearing their continuous flight call as they winged over Sarah’s house one Sunday morning and seeing the one lone individual on September 24th as he flew over Jesse’s Pond and landed briefly in our plum tree whetted my desire to see and hear more of them. Thanks to the Midnats whose Hotline calls allowed me to do this. Please call again - have binoculars, will travel.

The Prince of Wied could not have been more thrilled when he discovered these birds in the Rocky Mountains of Montana in 1833 than were the naturalists on the plains of Midland, Texas in the year 2000!