Mike in the Wild

Long before there were European and American explorers, and even before there were the modern Native American tribes we know today, the Hohokam people called the river valleys of central and southern Arizona home.  They left over a thousand years of archaeological evidence in the area before their culture collapsed in the decades leading up to 1500. Today the area is dotted with the remains of their settlements.  And their own extensive canals are part of the water ways still in use today.   Local museums are filled with their pottery, jewelry, tools and handiwork.  And numerous hikes and explorations in the desert offer a unique glimpse into their lives via their rock carvings. Called petroglyphs, these images picked or chiseled into stone surfaces seem to represent both the animate and abstract.   Most experts agree that they're not graffiti because of the tremendous effort put into their creation.  It's possible that the Hohokam were acknow...

After an exceptionally warm autumn, it's starting to look like a normal winter in the Arizona desert, with occasional rainfall and cool temperatures.  Snowbirds - both human and avian - from the chilly northern climates of the continent are making their annual visits.   One quite unique visitor this season is a juvenile male rufous hummingbird that's been spotted frequently at Phoenix' Desert Botanical Garden. Rufous hummingbirds travel as far north as Alaska to mate and raise their young.  Typically they travel north from Mexico through California in late spring, breeding in early summer somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, and then migrating back to Mexico via the Rocky Mountains starting later in the summer.   It's on this return flight that they visit the mountains and deserts of Arizona While it's not unprecedented, it's rare for one to pick the Sonora Desert for a winter sojourn versus its normal residence in southern Mexico.  Whatever the rea...

The most common woodpecker in Arizona's deserts is probably the Gila woodpecker.  From a distance he's sometimes confused with the gilded flicker, especially from behind, because they each have a black latticed pattern on their backs.  But the Gila is much smaller and has a plainer front, lacking the black-speckled torso and black chest plate of the gilded.  Also, the Gila male sports a red cap versus the gilded's red mustache as their sex's distinguishing feature. One thing the pair share is an attraction to my backyard's hummingbird feeder.  They each cling to it like they do the bark of tall trees and palms, and slurp the sugar water with their long, skinny tongues.  So for this edition of the blog, I'd like to welcome the Gila woodpecker to my periodic posts on lucky backyard birding.  Remember that sometimes a look outside your window is all you need to experience another adventure in the wild. Male Gila woodpecker, above, and female gilder flick...

There are a number of cardinal species in the Americas, with the brilliantly red-colored northern cardinal being the most famous in the United States.  But the Arizona deserts are a year-round home to another cardinal, the pyrrhuloxia.  Gray with red highlights, while sporting a pointier crest and stubbier beak than his famous cousin, he calls the American Southwest and the deserts of central Mexico home. Phoenix doesn't get a lot of sightings of the pyrrhuloxia, unlike Tucson's surrounding deserts almost a hundred miles to the south.  But a lone male seems to have taken up residence at the Desert Botanical Garden in the center of the metropolitan area's urban sprawl.  He seems to thrive in the acres of habitat that showcase the world's heat-loving and drought-tolerant flora. And this desert cardinal as he's sometimes called seems to be living at the northern-most limit of his species' range, providing a lucky chance for Central Arizona's birders to conv...

One of my original inspirations for the "Mike in the Wild" blog was to have a vehicle by which I could easily share photos with friends.  Since my favorite subjects were birds and nature, I came up with a name that captured the essence of my material - an individual and his personal experience in the outdoors.  While I've been fortunate to visit numerous parks and wilderness areas, I'm always amazed at how much my backyard and the view outside my window remind me I'm already in the wild. To that point, just this week, I heard the tell-tale piercing caw of a flicker outside a sliding glass door while I busily typed on the computer.  Not the first time to hear it, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed in getting my camera.  Sure enough, when I peered out the window I saw a gilded flicker - this time a female - eyeing my yard's hummingbird feeder from a nearby hanging lamp.  She's a type of woodpecker and the largest bird in the neighborhood, so when she fi...

One of the many reasons for man's fascination with birds is the avian's ability to soar in the sky at great heights.  And one way to witness that skill up close is to sail aboard a modern cruise ship and observe magnificent frigatebirds from the dizzying heights of a top deck. Magnificent frigatebirds live in tropical climates near saltwater coasts.  And they seem to be opportunistic hunters, finding a meal in the sea life that surfaces as vessels churn the water while sailing and navigating. As a result, any ship's entry into a shallow port seems to create a feeding frenzy for the birds and a photographic opportunity for a birder as recently documented from the Lido Deck high atop the Royal Princess as it entered the port of Saint John's in Antigua. Male magnificent frigatebird. Male magnificent frigatebird. Male magnificent frigatebird. Female magnificent frigatebird. Female magnificent frigatebird. Juvenile magnificent frigatebird. ...

Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands was hit hard by hurricane Irma in late 2017.  Much of the island is still without power, and blue tarps still act as roofs on many homes.  But the island is nevertheless open for business, with main roads, shops and beaches welcoming shiploads of tourists for visits. Coki Bay's beach on the northeast side of the island is a good example of the island's fast recovery, where the beach side concessions are serving drinks and renting chairs to anyone that wants to enjoy the sand and surf.  And the dive shops are renting snorkeling masks and fins so visitors can witness the beauty and resilience of the nearby reefs up close. A number of shots of a large stoplight parrotfish that was especially active and colorful during a recent visit to Coki Bay's reefs follow. Stoplight Parrotfish off Coki Beach. The bright orange colors in its tail give the stoplight parrotfish its name. Stoplight parrotfish off Coki Beach,...