Mike in the Wild

There seems to be a countless number of sparrow species, especially when you consider their entire extended family that also includes many buntings and all the juncos and towhees.   More than a dozen varieties live at least part of the year in Arizona where, to name just two, the black-throated sparrow thrives in the deserts and the rufous-crowned sparrow in the mountains. On a recent Saturday in Prescott I recognized a chipping sparrow pecking through the stones in my front yard.  He was joined by a pair of white-crowned sparrows that were less bold and preferred the safety of the canopy of some nearby bushes.  Meanwhile at least two dark-eyed juncos flitted through the landscape, occasionally stopping at my seed feeder for snacks.  I paused for a moment to enjoy the comings and goings of these mostly ground-hunting cousins. The juncos are year-round residents in the forests around Prescott.  This species has several races and it is the red-backed that I m...

Finding colonies of exotic birds in the wild is a colorful part of the bird watching experience.  The rosy-faced lovebirds that populate many Phoenix neighborhoods are easy to find if you're listening for them; they seem to chirp incessantly unless they're eating.  And I vividly recall the flock of rose-ringed parakeets I photographed in a tree canopy over the canal in Zweibruecken, Germany several years ago.  Both of these colorful species are native to Africa and have managed to survive, if not thrive, in urban habitats around the globe. So I was excited to find a new immigrant to the American landscape in the form of a northern red bishop at Watson Lake in Prescott last Monday.  This bird is also native to Africa and is as equally striking in appearance as the parrots.  But the bishop is not in their same family; instead it's in the large order of passerines - sometimes called songbirds - and is grouped more specifically with weavers.  These birds are kn...

My summers in Prescott always begin with much eagerness for the changes from my desert life in Phoenix: cool temperatures, dark night skies, monsoon thunder storms, verdant forest landscapes, an abundance of critters like skunks, and lots and lots of birds.   After nearing completion of my thirteenth season escaping some of the hottest temperatures in Arizona - not to mention record-breaking - I've not been disappointed on the subject of birds.  Every late spring I love reacquainting myself with the woodpeckers, jays, juncos, nuthatches and titmice that call the juniper and scrub oaks a full-time home.   But it might be the more challenging search for migratory birds that I most look forward to every year.  Plenty of neotropical birds that spend our cooler winter months in Central or South America breed in North America during our warm summer.  Orioles, warblers and cardinals are just a few of the avian families whose many species travel to or through ...

Bird-watching presents challenges even from the comfort of our porch chairs and backyards.  While feeders and native landscaping attract a wide range of avian visitors, our successful efforts can sometimes lead to a bit of confusion.  That is, many of these birds will also breed in your neighborhood with their offspring paying visits as soon as they're out of their nests.  But will you recognize these fledglings and juveniles as the same species who munch on your seeds and peck at your suet most of the year? It took studying a couple of photographs to identify a junior spotted towhee in my Prescott yard this past summer.  No beady red eyes, no jet-black head, no cinnamon torso: he was just a plain, dark bird.  It was likewise with another common sparrow in Arizona's pine forests, the dark-eyed junco.  He scratched at the dirt and pebbles below my deck just like you'd expect of a junco but his streaked and mottled brown feathers made him look more like a h...

Birds sport every color imaginable and then even more because our feathered friends see ultra-violet light, invisible to our own human eyes.  But sometimes it seems that when we observe bird life in live action, it's a lot like watching an old movie, filmed in black and white, detailed only in hues of gray.  Of course there are a few colorful regulars at my Prescott seed and suet feeders, like that scarlet-headed male house finch.  And the male lesser goldfinch shines like a lemon drop sugar candy, brightly disproportionate to his diminutive size.  But the most notable visitors are the bushtits, titmice, nuthatches and woodpeckers that are either black and white or, excuse my plagiarism, many shades of gray.   So it was especially exciting on the last day of August when I discovered some eye-catching birds at Granite Basin Lake Recreation Area, just a few miles away from my home.   The morning actually got off to a very slow start in terms of ...