Island Scrub-Jays in the Pines?

Island Scrub-Jays are fascinating to watch. Luckily, it's my job to sit and watch them for hours. Wait, actually it's my job to hike up very steep and strenuous hills and then sit and watch them...and then twist carefully and quietly through dense brush to locate their nest.

This year we have a plot studying the birds in the Bishop Pine forest, which is very exciting because no one really knows whether jays really nest in the pines, or if they eat the pine seeds from open cones, or much about their habits in the pines at all, really! We do know that the jays in the pines are morphologically and genetically different from the jays in the oak woodlands. Dr. Katie Langin, a fresh Ph.D from CSU Fort Collins, recently wrote a lovely piece about the differences for Slate's Animal Blog titled "Evolution Works in Fast, Localized, Mysterious Ways". Essentially, the pine jays' bills are slimmer and longer for getting deep in crevices of pine cones (most likely fishing for insects). Cool, right? 

The view of Sierra Blanca from our pines plot in Cebada Canyon. Note how many pines are dead--this is from a combination of Bark Beetle kill and three years of drought. Ouch.

It isn't unheard of for jays to live in primarily pine habitat--Western Scrub-Jays in the inland parts of their range (the Great Basin) live in pinyon pine and juniper habitat. They build nests in Pinyon Pines. Do Island Scrub-Jays build nests in the Bishop Pines? We don't know, but it doesn't seem like it would be a very good idea. Bishop Pines are thin and scraggly with little cover, which the jays need to protect the nests from Ravens. As we search for nests in the pines, the three nests we have found so far are in low dense Scrub Oak and Summer Holly. So far, the jays in the pines haven't been very "nesty" and it is hard to keep track of territories (if they are there, who knows, maybe they don't even defend territories in the pines and stick to small oak clumps to nest but forage everywhere else!). It feels pretty good to be on the forefront of science here on Santa Cruz Island--there aren't a lot of places where that is possible to be in the United States!

The beautiful bell-like flowers of Summer Holly, Comarostaphylis diversifolia.