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Migratory Birds at Spur Cross Ranch

I was sitting on an expansive patio outside a downtown Phoenix building when I spotted a Townsend's warbler, my first of the year.  Even though I was only yards above ten lanes of busy traffic zooming by on I-10, the setting was surprisingly tranquil owing to four palo verde trees ablaze in their yellow springtime blossoms.  As the bird darted from one spindly branch to the next, it reminded me that we were in peak warbler migration season, when many species would either be migrating into Arizona or through the state for summer breeding.   It was easy to motivate myself early the next morning to drive forty-five minutes north to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area near the community of Cave Creek.  This gem of the Maricopa County Park system protected an unspoiled desert environment at the northern edge of Phoenix's vast urban sprawl.  More importantly the park surrounded a natural waterway that was part of a bird migration corridor.  Even though no wat...
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From Los Angeles to Vancouver on a Cruise Ship

The songs of my backyard's wintering white-crowned sparrows were still playing in my ears when I left my Phoenix home for a week-long, cruise.  It was a one-way, early-spring sailing from the port of Los Angeles to Vancouver, British Columbia.  I must have been attuned to the sparrows' plaintive melodies to quickly recognize the same calls and birds at most of the stops, namely in San Francisco; Astoria, Oregon; and Victoria, British Columbia.  However it was sea birds I was mostly seeking out, with one in particular, the tufted puffin, highest on my list.  Before setting off from Los Angeles I observed one unique sea bird right in the port: a lone western grebe.  It was floating and diving in the shadow of the colossal Grand Princess, my cruise ship for the journey.  The surrounding industrial complex that handles more cargo than any other seaport in the United States didn't strike me as ideal habitat for this elegant creature.  Squawking gulls and ba...
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Surprises in Carara National Park

It was one of the easiest parks to reach on my eight-day trip to Costa Rica.  Even though it's bordered by the main highway on the country's Pacific Coast, I nonetheless missed the entrance the morning I visited Carara National Park and then had to turn my rental car around in heavy traffic.  A guide solicited me as I slowly drove through the open gate but I waived him off; I preferred to get my bearings and explore the visitor center first.  However besides restrooms and an attendant to check my reservation, there was very little information displayed about the park.  I had become accustomed to at least snapping a photo of placards with trail maps but the only one posted showed surprisingly little detail.  I was visiting Carara on my last full day in Costa Rica.  It was my very last park and my last chance to see some birds that had mostly eluded me.  Namely scarlet macaws were on my list, but so too were trogons.  I had seen a pair of the macaws...
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Squeezing into Manuel Antonio National Park

I had thought that Manuel Antonio National Park only allowed six hundred visitors to enter daily. While eating an early breakfast on my hotel restaurant's patio in Quepos, I could see a line of people waiting to enter through the park's gate shortly after the seven o'clock opening time.  I queued for almost ten minutes when I was admitted closer to nine o'clock, the time I had reserved two weeks before through the preserve's on-line ticketing portal.  Crowds were a new phenomenon during my mid-winter Costa Rica trip.  Why was Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica's smallest national park, also its busiest?   In Arenal Volcano National Park, I had stayed at the only hotel situated immediately in the park.  My impression was the hotel wasn't full and even day visitors were scarce.  When I visited Monteverde Cloud Forest on the next leg of my trip, a lot of people were entering the park at 11:30 a.m. when I joined my guided tour.  But there wasn't any wait to p...
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Observations at Arenal in Costa Rica

I wanted to think I had arrived in an Eden, an unspoiled wilderness, untouched by the hand of man or by any other unworthy fate.  Wasn't that what Costa Rica promised me in the firsthand accounts of all my friends' trips there?  Of course they rattled on about the ziplining, the whitewater rafting, the surfing, and the biking, all things not interesting to me.  But I was hearing something else in these stories: the forests, the waterfalls, the nature trails, and the extraordinary wildlife.  Indeed I soon discovered my bucket list awaiting me in Arenal National Park.  But my experience there also taught me that the reality of Costa Rica's natural history owed a lot to acts of God, and often to human drama. The first hotel I booked on my Costa Rica trip was the Arenal Observatory Lodge.  Unlike on my trip's four other legs, the demand was so high that I needed a reservation six months in advance.  The hotel billed itself as the only one within Arenal Vol...
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