Mike in the Wild

I soon started calling the white-headed bird visiting my Prescott feeders Uncle Fester.  Like the well-known member of the Addams family, the bird appeared bald, and the black stripes on both sides of its face made the bird's eyes look dark and sunken.  In my years of birdwatching, I had never seen anything like it. After I realized it wasn't an exotic new species, I began to think it was a white-breasted nuthatch with a color variation.  Maybe the bird was missing its head's black patch that sometimes appears like a thin black stripe stretching between its eyes from beak to nape.  Then I thought it might be a red-breasted nuthatch, a bird that only rarely visits my yard.  But I soon recognized the bird as a pygmy nuthatch without its normally gray head feathers.   As I studied the photographs I took, I also discovered it lacked any buff hue in its sides and belly.  Uncle Fester was leucistic, having a genetic condition where an animal has an abse...

I awoke to the sound of breaking glass coming from outside my bedroom window.   Even though it was 12:30 AM, I grabbed a flashlight and headed outside in the direction of the noise, towards my neighbors' house.  I knew they were out of town, and I would have wanted them to similarly keep an eye on my place while I traveled.  When I reached the end of my driveway, I could see a pair of bright eyes across the street reflecting the beam of my flashlight.  On a slope below where my neighbors kept their trash bins, a bear was staring directly at me.  And then it turned, climbed up the slope, and sauntered away down the street.   Just a few weeks later, I would have an entirely different bear story that occurred very much closer -  not a hundred feet away but a mere six feet from my front door.  My summer had begun several weeks earlier with lots of bear sightings in my Prescott neighborhood.  There were stories of a big one that kept get...

The first of July is Rufous Hummingbird Day at my cabin in Prescott.  Like most years, that was the day this summer when I saw the first one of the season perching in the alligator juniper tree adjacent to my deck.  By the end of the week, that or some other male rufous had unsurprisingly supplanted a male Anna's as the new owner of my yard's hummingbird feeder.   Anna's hummingbirds can reside year-round in Prescott, many surviving winter's sub-zero temperatures and snowstorms.  To help them out during the arrival of the dominant rufouses, I installed a second sugar water feeder in my yard as soon I discovered the migrants.  Alas within a few days, another male rufous took control of that supply of nectar also.  Any Anna's imbibed only by daring occasional, furtive sips.   Before the arrival of the rufous, I began spotting an occasional black-chinned hummingbird at the feeder.  This bird is a summer visitor to the higher elevations of A...

I just traveled over three hundred miles across and around Oahu seeking out its best snorkeling sites.  No place was more renowned on my list of eleven locations than Hanauma Bay.  It was also the most difficult to visit, requiring lots of preparation: a reserved ticket, a specific entry time, long lines, multiple check-ins, a reef-etiquette lecture, and, finally, an educational/safety video.  While its landscape set within a sunken volcanic crater was breathtakingly beautiful and its extensive reef's marine life magnificent, Hanauma Bay turned out to be much less impressive of a snorkeling spot than Shark's Cove, another spot on my list. Hanauma Bay on Oahu. In a snorkeling comparison, another Hawaiian island, Maui, has probably spoiled me.  Its northwestern and southern coastlines contain a multitude of resorts and guest lodgings that front miles of coral reefs laying an easy swim from shore.  Its not uncommon to leave your hotel room with your mask, snorkel, ...

After eight months away from the mountains of northern Arizona, I was eager to visit Watson Woods as soon as I settled back in my summer home in Prescott in late May.  The riparian preserve has always promised sightings of migratory birds like tanagers, grosbeaks, and occasionally even orioles.  Just as exciting have been the nesting great horned owls that I have witnessed.  However I wasn't expecting the posters along the park's trails alerting me to nesting bald eagles in the vicinity.  After scouring the landscape over the course of two visits, I was thrilled to observe both a fledged eagle and at least one of its dedicated parents.   Several summers ago while kayaking, I watched a bald eagle as it perched within the Dells, an expansive range of boulders and rock formations that border the northern end of Granite Lake.  Watson Woods lie at the southern end of the manmade lake, where Granite Creek normally fills the reservoir.  (A dry winter has...

An explosion of air startled me as I watered a backyard pot teeming with aloe vera plants.  I had inadvertently disturbed a Gambel's quail hidden in the foliage, triggering her into a sudden flight.  When I discovered her clutch of eleven tiny eggs nestled below the intertwining aloe arms, I immediately directed my garden hose into the cacti growing in some neighboring pots.  Over the next four weeks I endeavored to keep the nest off limits to everyone except the mother quail.   Initially I was concerned that the quail had completely abandoned my backyard and, subsequently, her nest.  However by the next day I observed a female quail periodically walking along the wall above the potted aloes.  And then a day or two later, when I poked my nose a little too closely into the plants, I scared the mother bird away yet again.  A short time after, I thankfully saw a single female quail, apparently the mother, return to the area. The first encounter began...