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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Juniper Titmouse

Baeolophus ridgwayi

• rare
• 55 km/h
• Least Concern

The drier-country sibling of the oak titmouse. Lives where the junipers go and not one tree farther.

Population

~6.5 million mature individuals (Partners in Flight 2024 estimate; BirdLife/IUCN factsheet also cites an older, explicitly lower-quality 2011 figure of ~290,000), increasing trend

Habitat

Open, dry pinyon-juniper woodlands, pure juniper woodland, and desert riparian scrub of the interior western US (elevations roughly 0-3,240 m)

Fun fact

The Juniper Titmouse was only recognized as its own species in 1996, when the American Ornithologists' Union split the former "Plain Titmouse" into the Juniper Titmouse and the visually near-identical Oak Titmouse based on differences in voice, habitat, and genetics.

Range

Year-round resident of the Great Basin and southern Rockies region: southeastern Oregon and central Colorado south through the eastern Mojave Desert of California, central Arizona, western Texas, and extreme northeastern Sonora, Mexico

Diet

Insects and spiders (some caught in mid-air), berries, acorns, and seeds; forages on foliage, twigs, branches, trunks, and the ground, and will visit feeders

Size

0.135 m

Wingspan

0.19 m

Lifespan

4 years