Mike in the Wild

Why I visit the Grand Canyon only occasionally is a mystery to me.  It's only a two hour drive from my summer place in Prescott, the destination is a stunning natural wonder, the South Rim lies at an elevation of 7,000 feet, and the surrounding pine forests are cooler and frequently wetter than those immediately around my cabin.  Finally the bird life, while familiar in many ways, always includes some noteworthy encounters. Walking through the pine forests bordering the rim, I was initially struck by how familiar the birds were to those in Prescott's own woods.  Pygmy nuthatches prattled in small, animated groups while their bigger white-breasted cousins foraged individually.  Pairs of scrub jays flashed bright blue over sheer cliffs and acorn woodpeckers squawked from the dizzying heights of ponderosa pines. But the Steller's jays reminded me I wasn't in the forests near my cabin.  These dark birds do indeed populate the higher elevations of Prescott and occasionally v

Fighting late day traffic through north Phoenix in order to reach Prescott has its rewards.  Most notable is knocking 25 degrees off the thermometer's record  temperatures. (Yes, it was 110 when I left the desert last Thursday but was not even 85 in the pines less than two hours away.)  There are sometimes even surprises waiting for me up there in the form of rain, thunder, hail, and, last week, a bat.   Of course bats are common across Arizona's night skies.  Mostly visible at dusk, they zigzag overhead as they hunt insects.  However where I never see them is in my deck furniture.   I use a shade umbrella to block the morning sunlight and to keep my Prescott porch cool throughout the day. During the wettest periods of the summer I'll even sit under the wide cover and enjoy the cool raindrops enveloping me. Tall ponderosa pines add to the refreshing atmosphere but the bird activity in the trees contributes to accumulations of twigs, bark, and pinecones, among other things.

I had heard about it, but I never envisioned contacting it in my own backyard.  Of course I was lucky in a way because I observed it mostly from inside of my house.  But it was still a shock to come face to face with the parasite taking advantage of a favorite Phoenix bird, the Abert's towhee. Before I make this sound even more dire than I already have, the towhee and I were not in any physical danger.  The invasive creature in my garden was actually just a  juvenile brown-headed cowbird.  This species is sometimes referred to as a brood parasite because it lays its eggs in other birds' nests.  The cowbirds then leave the responsibility of tending the eggs and raising the hatchlings to the nest-building birds, like the Abert's towhee that I found feeding the young cowbird in my backyard. Unfortunately the baby cowbirds outcompete any other chicks - like the towhees - that also hatch in the nest.  As a result the adult towhee might end up raising an alien species instead of