Date: 10/10/26 1:58 pm From: David Suddjian <dsuddjian...> Subject: [cobirds] Pine Birds: Corvids and more around the San Luis Valley
There are very impressive numbers of corvids now in the Pinyon / Juniper (PJ) woodland of northern Costilla and northeastern Alamosa counties, (i.e.,the low slopes of the Blanca Massif). The pinyon pines have a prodigious new cone crop with lots of freshly available pine nuts. Birding in the southern San Luis Valley area Oct 7-9 found 847 Pinyon Jays, 177 Steller's Jays, 4 Blue Jays (filtered as rare by eBird), 30 Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays, 685 Clark's Nutcrackers and 191 Cassin's Finches. Mountain Chickadees and Red-breasted Nuthatches were also abundant. Red Crossbill was little in evidence at the time, but many were found on the Huerfano side of La Veta Pass.
It was a spectacle. Clark's Nutcrackers are super common. Pinyon jay calls are ever present on the landscape, but numbers are highly concentrated (i.e. a flock of about 475 feeding near the bottom of the Zapata Falls entry road. Many of the 177 Steller's Jays were seen making long flights high over the landscape, as if making movements vs just foraging. A spot near Fort Garland had 71 Steller's flying by. The Zapata Falls Trail road is highly recommended, and the P/J habitats in the Great Sand Dunes National Park. These species were in P/J and mixed forests in Conejos County, but the pinyon crop is much more limited there and there were fewer of these pine birds.
David Suddjian Littleton CO
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