Jerry McAllister.

A juniper titmouse was reported on the Tucson Audubon Rare Bird Alert in early January this year. It had never before been reported in the Patagonia Mountains of southern Arizona or anywhere in Santa Cruz County even though the area is arguably the best birding in the USA. On February 11, Matt Brown, proprietor of Patagonia Birding and Butterfly Company, and I went to look for it. The mountain drive was arduous after a six-inch snow and 25F temperature. Matt said he liked to slop around on snowy forest service roads at least one day a year to remember his growing up years in upstate New York.

Patagonia, Arizona is nestled at the foot of the mountains of the same name along Sonoita Creek which runs along the western edge. Harshaw Creek drains the highest elevations and empties into Sonoita Creek in the town. At the highest elevation, over 6,000 feet, is Duquesne, a mining ghost town where the Patagonias’ first mine was started in the 19th century. A 70-minute drive is required to get to Duquesne, a crow’s journey of about 10 miles. The sighting was reported by Josh Stewart who lives near the ghost town and took the 70-minute drive twice a day for many years to his job in Nogales.

The road was frozen without slush when we left Patagonia. Josh said the juniper titmouse fed most mornings on manzanita seeds from 8 a.m. to noon in a small area along the forest service road near his driveway entrance, a mile from Duquesne and also above 6,000 feet. The area contains a few one-seed juniper trees, the bird’s primary annual food source and possibly the only stand in Santa Cruz County. Several local birders had verified Josh’s report. We told Josh we’d meet him at the entrance between 10 and 11 am.

The drive to Duquesne follows Harshaw Creek which holds very good habitat for the rare Elegant Torgan. It is a Mexican bird found in the USA only in southeast Arizona. While the area has maybe a hundred breeding pairs in summer, with about 10 in the Patagonia Mountains, there are often a handful of winter stragglers with Harshaw Creek being the best bet. We called at several elevations. The calling was not expected to get answers in winter but should attract the attention of a fly-buy. Nothing! We did spot woodpeckers, kinglets, towhees, pyrrhuloxia, an owl, a creeper, sparrows, bluebirds, ravens, and a single warbler. Sunny weather without wind brings out birds for their morning feed. Temperatures in the 20s do not help.

At about the 5,000-foot level, the road became sloppy. There was plenty of fishtailing and correction for Matt. He skillfully avoided going over the road shoulder. Had he not done so, we would have high centered or rolled down a steep embankment. I was glad for seat belts. As we neared Josh’s driveway frozen roads re-appeared and we reached the highest elevations. The view to the east was spectacular, filled by the much larger Huachuca Mountains, to the south were several Mexican Mountains, and to the north was Mount Washington, highest peak in the Patagonias and only a little higher than Duquesne.

Josh was standing in the forest service road with binoculars and with a camera attached to the biggest magnifying lens I’d ever seen. It was 10:55 a.m. He had been standing in the same spot for almost an hour and had watched and filmed the juniper titmouse continuously. Footage showed the individual gathering manzanita fruit, taking it to the same spot over and over, extracting the black seeds, and opening them with a lot of noise sounding like a woodpecker drilling holes. All of this was accompanied by his raucous calls. Unfortunately, a jeep with javelina hunters had stopped 10 minutes before our arrival and talked for a minute or two. At that point the jeep shifted back into gear with a loud metal clashing sound and a backfire, the titmouse flew away and had not returned.

We split up and walked up and down a 300-yard stretch of road while calling frequently with both a titmouse call and a pygmy owl call, either of which should bring a resident titmouse close from at least 100 yards away. We pounded the manzanita brush on both sides of the road, as well as a slight wash paralleling the road. We heard a single bridled titmouse call once and spotted a canyon towhee feeding under a manzanita twice. The manzanita fruit was abundant. There were several examples of the locally rare one-seed juniper. But there was not any sign of the juniper titmouse despite two hours of our serious hunting.

At one o’clock we departed, took a loop through Duquesne and sloped back down Harshaw Creek canyon. Matt was “picking in high cotton” as they say where I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast. There were mud dune buggies, mountain bikes, and 4-wheelers doing the same. The roads are rarely sloppy along Harshaw Creek. People had come from Sierra Vista, Nogales, and probably Tucson. It was a good day for all of us and for Josh.

Jerry McAllister is a retired chemist, writer and avid outdoorsman who lives in northwestern Wisconsin on Big Sissabagama Lake. Once upon a time, he completed post-doc research at Iowa State University. All seven of his grandchildren are growing up in Iowa.