Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Photo: Dustin Huntington/Vireo
Juniper Titmouse
Baeolophus ridgwayi
| Conservation status | Locally common in parts of its range, with no obvious trends in population. |
|---|---|
| Family | Chickadees and Titmice |
| Habitat | Pinyon-juniper woodland; locally river woods, shade trees. Found mainly in open woods of pinyon pine and juniper, as well as in oak or pine-oak woods. |
Photo Gallery
Feeding Behavior
Forages by hopping about in branches and larger twigs of trees, sometimes hanging upside down, searching for insects among the foliage and on the bark. Opens nuts and acorns by holding them with feet and pounding with bill. Comes to bird feeders for seeds or suet.
Eggs
Usually 5-6, sometimes 4-7. White, sometimes lightly dotted with reddish brown. Incubation is probably by female only, 14-16 days. Young: Both parents bring food to nestlings. Young leave nest about 16-21 days after hatching.
Young
Both parents bring food to nestlings. Young leave nest about 16-21 days after hatching.
Diet
Insects, nuts, seeds. Feeds mainly on insects, including many caterpillars, beetles, true bugs, and many others, as well as some spiders. Also eats pinyon nuts, acorns, weed seeds, and sometimes berries or small fruits. B
Nesting
At least in some areas, pairs or family groups may defend territories all year. Nest site (possibly selected by female) is usually in hole in tree, sometimes hole in stump, fence post, or pole. May be natural cavity or old woodpecker hole. In rotten wood, both members of pair may work to enlarge small cavities for their use. Also will use nest boxes, or crevices in old, twisted trunks of juniper or pine. Nest has foundation of grass, weeds, moss, bark fibers, and lining of soft material such as feathers or animal hair.
How climate change could affect this bird's range
In the broadest and most detailed study of its kind, Audubon scientists have used hundreds of thousands of citizen-science observations and sophisticated climate models to predict how birds in the U.S. and Canada will react to climate change.
Read more: climate.audubon.org
Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
