The Juniper Titmouse: A Canary in the Coalmine?

Last year many juniper trees dried up and died across the Prescott area.  Hillsides and fields that should have been speckled with evergreens were instead shrouded in golden balls of withering foliage.  Extreme drought and above-average temperatures, two effects of climate change, were killing several species of the tree.

That same year, I didn't witness any juniper titmice in my Prescott yard.  Was it a consequence: disappearing juniper trees leaving juniper titmice homeless?  No, as serious as the climate crisis is, I was prematurely alarmed.  

The juniper titmouse lives in much more varied habitat than one consisting of a single family of trees.  And this year, a chatty pair of the birds has even discovered my Prescott yard's suet and seed feeders, both of which hang from an ancient, scraggly juniper tree. 

Lack of winter snow pack in Arizona's high country is depriving local forests of much of their water source.  Fortunately this year's summer monsoon rain is already making up for some of that annual deficit.  But fast moving, ephemeral washes are no substitute for the steady supply of moisture from slow-melting snow.

In a typical year, the first week of July brings rufous hummingbirds to my Prescott yard.  However, I only started noticing them this week, two weeks later than normal.   And uncharacteristically, a male of the species hasn't yet supplanted the Anna's that's currently in control of the sugar water I proffer.  

Meanwhile, all the other birds that I could expect to visit my yard and feeders have been making their regular appearances.  I've been watching not one but two extended acorn woodpecker families raise their young.  Swarms of twenty bushtits at a time scour the neighborhood trees for tiny insects.  And long-distance migratory birds like black-headed grosbeaks and hepatic tanagers have been easy to spot.  

I'm not ready to declare that the local ecosystem has been irredeemably altered, but it's clear it's under stress from changes inflected by climate change.  Seasonal creeks run less if at all.  Pinyon pines and some junipers struggle to survive in warmer, drier weather.  

What bird will be the canary in the coalmine, the first victim warning us of an unlivable environment?  For now, mercifully, it's not the juniper titmouse or rufous hummingbird. 

Juniper titmouse in my Prescott yard this summer.

Juniper titmouse in my Prescott yard this summer.

Juniper titmouse in my Prescott seed feeder this summer.