Jerry McAllister.
A juniper tit was reported in a Tucson Audubon Rare Bird Alert in early January of this year. It had never been reported anywhere in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona or Santa Cruz County, even though this region is some of the best birding in the United States. On February 11, Matt Brown, owner of Patagonia Bird and Butterfly Company, and I went looking for the bird. Driving on the mountain roads was tough after six inches of snow and 25-degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Matt said he loved to drive around snowy forest service roads at least one day a year, reminiscing about growing up in upstate New York.
Patagonia, Arizona is located at the foot of the mountains that share the same name, along the Sonoita River, which runs along its western edge. The Harshaw River flows into the town at its highest point, emptying into the Sonoita River. At its highest point, over 6,000 feet, is the mining ghost town of Duquesne, where Patagonia's first mine was opened in the 19th century. Duquesne is a 70-minute drive, or about 10 miles as the crow flies. The sighting was reported by Josh Stewart, who lives near the ghost town and made the 70-minute drive to his job in Nogales twice daily for many years.
When we left Patagonia, the roads were icy and there was no snowmelt. Josh told me that juniper tits fed on manzanita seeds most mornings from 8am until noon in a small area along a forest service road near the driveway entrance to his home, a mile from Duquesne and at an elevation of over 6,000 feet. The area is home to several single-seeded juniper trees, the juniper tits' main year-round food source and perhaps the only colony of such trees in Santa Cruz County. Several local birders corroborated Josh's report. We told Josh we'd meet him at the entrance between 10am and 11am.
The drive to Duquesne goes along Harshaw Creek, a very good habitat for the rare Elegant Tulgan. The Elegant Tulgan is a bird native to Mexico and found in the United States only in southeastern Arizona. There are perhaps 100 or so breeding pairs in the area in summer, and about 10 in the Patagonia Mountains, but in winter, a few stragglers are often seen, with Harshaw Creek being a prime candidate. We called at several elevations. We expected no response to calls in winter, but we should have attracted the attention of a fly-by. Nothing! We found woodpeckers, rock siskins, towhees, skylarks, owls, tree sparrows, blue thrushes, ravens, and one warbler. Sunny, windless weather encourages the birds to fly out for their morning feed. Feeding-disturbing temperatures make the situation worse.
At about 5,000 feet, the road started to get muddy. Matt skidded and had to correct a number of times. He deftly stayed on the shoulder, or we would have slid out of our lanes or rolled down a steep slope. Thank goodness we had our seat belts. As we approached Josh's driveway, the icy road reappeared and we reached our highest elevation. The views to the east were spectacular, with the much larger Huachuca Mountains towering over us, several Mexican mountain ranges to the south, and Mount Washington, Patagonia's highest peak, just a little taller than Duquesne, to the north.
Josh was standing on the forest road with a camera and binoculars with the largest magnifying lens I had ever seen. It was 10:55 AM. He had been standing in the same spot for almost an hour, constantly watching and filming a juniper tit. The footage showed the individual collecting manzanita berries, taking them to the same spot multiple times, extracting the black seeds, and opening the berries with a loud noise like a woodpecker drilling holes. All of this was accompanied by his noisy calls. Unfortunately, 10 minutes before we arrived, a jeep carrying a javelina hunter pulled up and we talked for a minute or two, at which point the jeep shifted back into gear with a loud metal crash and backfired. The tit flew off and never returned.
We split up and walked up and down the 300-yard road, making frequent calls of tufted titmice and pygmy owls, each of which should draw the tufted titmice at least 100 yards away. We hit the manzanita bushes on either side of the road and the small stream bed that parallels it. We heard one call of a white-tailed titmice and twice spotted a canyon towhee feeding under a manzanita tree. Manzanita berries were plentiful, as were some single-grained junipers, a local rarity. But after two hours of earnest searching, we saw no sign of a juniper-tufted titmice.
We left at 1 o'clock and went around Duquesne and down the Harshaw Creek valley. Matt “Picking high-quality cotton” That's what they used to say on the Texas Gulf Coast where I grew up. There were muddy dune buggies, mountain bikes, and quads alike. The road along Harshaw Creek was barely muddy at all. People had come from Sierra Vista, Nogales, and probably even Tucson. It was a good day for all of us, and for Josh.
Jerry McAllister is a retired chemist, author, and avid outdoorsman who lives on Big Sisabagam Lake in northwest Wisconsin. He previously completed his postdoctoral studies at Iowa State University. All seven of his grandchildren are raised in Iowa.
