Mike in the Wild

I flew four hours on a jet, sailed two days on a cruise ship, rode one hour in a van, and motored a half-hour in a boat - all to find my very first gartered trogon a couple of weeks ago.  In contrast last weekend it only took a ten-minute walk from my front door to discover my first male common goldeneye.   While the trogon was in far-away Belize, joined by several other exotic first-time finds that never venture into the United States, the goldeneye is actually a regular winter visitor to our country.  Every year I encounter a small number along the Arizona Canal that supplies fresh water to Phoenix and that also provides pathways on its banks for runners like me.  Just this past December I spied my first goldeneyes of the season, a pair of females, on one of my morning jogs.   They're distinctive birds for reasons besides their strikingly bright yellow eyes.  The goldeneyes' long migrations are impressive flights of great distances, reaching Ari...

Princess Cruises called it an Elite Champagne Catamaran Sail and Snorkel with Lunch, an excursion I took in Cozumel on Christmas Eve.  I was especially interested in snorkeling the Mexican island's reefs; out of the twenty or so trips the cruise line offered, it fit the bill.   Of course I could have rented a car and snorkel equipment for the same amount of money, $100, and driven along Cozumel's southwestern coastline where I could have parked at a number of spots.  The protected reef is just several yards off most of the island's shore, an easy and mostly safe swim in calm weather. However it was a special holiday and I wasn't alone, lucky to be traveling with my partner of thirty-two years.  So together we decided on the Princess excursion, where he mostly champagned and I mostly snorkeled.  We would rendezvous on the deck over a lunch of fresh salads with guacamole and chips. The catamaran met us a short walk from our ship, at the southern-most cruise p...

I turned my back on the second longest barrier reef in the world, my mind on toucans and monkeys instead of sharks and rays.  Three out of the four stops on my Western Caribbean cruise comprised snorkeling adventures so I decided to head into the jungle on my Belize outing.  I wanted to appreciate the flora and fauna, not to mention the history and culture, of a country I barely knew.  Cruise ships don't dock in Belize City, where tenders shuttle tourists between the megaships and the main port.  On that half-hour ride I got a preview of some local bird life in the form of gulls, terns, and pelicans.  But those birds were a far cry from the exotic animal life that consumed me as I boarded a tour bus to Lamanai Archaeological Reserve.  The partially excavated structures at Lamanai were located an hour's drive from the port affording me a chance to see a portion of Belize's northern countryside.   Flat and historically forested, the tropical landsca...

I walked off my cruise ship docked on the Yucatan peninsula without a definite plan, something I don't normally do or recommend to others.  With a snorkel and mask, an underwater camera, a DSLR with a 400mm zoom lens, and a towel all jammed in my backpack, I knew I wanted to discover the wildlife along this strip of coastline marketed as the Costa Maya.  But I was torn by options on accomplishing that goal: an organized excursion sold by Princess Cruises, hiring a local guide pier-side, or just winging it independently.  Mahahual's cruise port was my exact location, a raucous complex of shops, cantinas, and tourist traps near a formerly sleepy fishing village on the southern end of Mexico's portion of the Yucatan.  Swimming with dolphins in a pool and visiting an aviary are actually two options on-site for animal-lovers.  However I question the quality of life the creatures have in captivity; with the birds especially, I worry that they're part of the global ill...