This tiny piñon tree is about 10 inches tall with new shoots that are 3 inches long! It sits downhill from a couple of mature piñons, one of which was our first Christmas tree after we moved into our house in 2000.

We had a good winter this year with lots of snow in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Most of our piñon and juniper trees look healthy and have new growth. But the outlook is still dire. Drought and rising temperatures are making these trees vulnerable along with another threat that Sara Van Note wrote about in this article Unraveling the Plight of the Pinyon Jay. According to Van Note, “Pinyon jays and piñon pines are wholly interdependent–the piñon nuts provide essential sustenance for the bird, and the jay offers critical seed dispersal for the tree.”

In the 28 years I have lived here I have rarely seen a pinyon jay. Much more common is the squawky Woodhouse’s scrub jay. He loudly announces his arrival at the birdfeeder and takes over the backyard. My guess is that it was one of these jays who cached a piñon nut and forgot to come back for it.

Here’s hoping it will be a good year for piñon nuts and my local scrub-jays. I don’t see as many of them as I used to but maybe a bumper crop of nuts will bring them around.

For now, I’ll be watching this sprout and giving it a little extra water over the summer months.