Mike in the Wild

Hiking, mountain biking, running, birding, horseback riding: Prescott's trail system offers countless pathways for many outdoor pastimes.  While I don't use my rickety bike much anymore, or ever saddle up a horse, I regularly partake in all the other activities.  But I discovered a new pastime on these paths over the past weekend: butterfly watching. The City of Prescott, Prescott National Forest and Yavapai Trails Association have teamed up to create and maintain this network of trails for easy and free non-motorized recreational use by both residents and visitors.   There are lots of ways to enter the mostly forested and mountainous spaces - at least that's the way they are in my far west side neighborhood of Kingswood - with Trail 317 being the most convenient to me.   The trail is descriptively known as Ridge Top and it quickly connects to other footpaths that lead directly to Thumb Butte - the iconic mountain landmark that appears on many Prescott ...

Scrub jays: check.  Acorn woodpeckers: check.  Nuthatches: check.  Juncos: check.  All birds are present and accounted for on another June day at the Prescott cabin as their familiar songs and calls give away their identities before I can spot them. However I theorize that May might be a more active month than June for bird sightings in the area for a couple of reasons.  For one, the weather starts to warm up after a winter of freezing temperatures.  That's when I start making regular trips to Prescott where I spend most of my time outdoors re-familiarizing myself with the native bird population.  But more importantly, it's the height of spring migration so a number of tanager and grosbeak species, to name just a few, pass through en route to area breeding grounds.  Once monsoon activity brings quenching rain to the area in July, bird sightings seem to pick up again as some species like rufous hummingbirds stop over as they make their long migr...

"Plant it and they will come," is a rough paraphrase borrowed from a famous late 1980's movie.  These words are an apt recommendation to attract birds to a backyard: landscape with native flora and you're guaranteed to have local species visit your garden.   As I've watched a newly planted palo verde tree mature over the last two years, I've seen verdins - some of the tiniest of desert birds - regularly visit it as they hunt for miniscule insects between its leaves or drink nectar from its spring blossoms.  And recently, juveniles have joined their parents in these forages, reminding me that not only does a well-placed tree encourage visits, it might just nurture a family. When you first encounter a verdin, it's usually their peeps you notice before you spot them.  Peep, hop, peep, hop: their nonstop performance is choreographed to a fast metronome.   They're tiny, even smaller than a chickadee, probably closer in size to a bushtit.  ...

A visit to Watson Woods in Prescott usually brings an exciting surprise or two; on a very few rare occasions, it's a disappointing day.   I've had a lot of luck finding interesting birds in the park over the years, especially colorful migratory species like western tanagers and blue grosbeaks.  And last year I encountered some spectacular year-round residents: a nesting great horned owl with her owlets.  But every once in a while I "strike out," seeing only more commonplace birds - ones I see on EVERY visit - like American robins and violet-green swallows. So I was hopeful to find a tanager or two on Monday's visit, along with maybe some nesting owls.  While I'm happy to find any critter to photograph, I like to have an ambitious objective in mind when I set off for  this riparian preserve along Granite Creek just south of Watson Lake.   My digital pictures are a useful tool for my goals because of their automatic date stamps.  And my na...