Mike in the Wild

After more than three decades of living in the city, I've recently discovered that Phoenix has its very own bat cave.  But unlike the Batcave of comic book fame, our desert city's subterranean den is populated by real live bats rather than a duo of superheroes.  In fact, it's a seasonal home to thousands of the flying mammals whose nightly departure is as spectacular as any summer fireworks display. As the days recently lengthened and warmed, I started my morning jogs quite early, even in the breaking light of dawn.  During the golf course portion of my run, I noticed several bats overhead, flitting and fluttering as they hunted insects.  Intrigued by the critters, I soon learned that a large colony of bats roost just two miles away from my home. These Mexican free-tailed bats started arriving in the area in the spring, migrating from as far away as South America.  In the 1990's they decided that a tunnel in a Maricopa County flood control project was an ideal l...

Predictability is one of the many pleasures in birding because it's so often a rarity.  After all, birds are wild creatures, navigating a barrage of nature's variables like seasons, weather, long-distance migrations, and the selfish, competing interests of so many other creatures, including man.  As a result sometimes merely catching a glimpse of a tanager high in a tree for only a brief moment can thrill the most jaded birder. Of course filled feeders in our yards do consistently attract many birds, which we can watch from sunrise to sunset as they peck at and gulp down our handouts.  As a result I've learned some of the animals' behaviors, like that acorn woodpeckers in Prescott eschew most seeds, and instead voraciously attack the peanut butter suet.  Meanwhile, lesser goldfinches avoid the suet altogether and instead imbibe in one or more of the five seeds in Jay's Premium Blend Birdseed. One Prescott bird that doesn't appear able to straddle the suet contai...

Witnessing the seasonal bird migrants is as much a motivation to visit Prescott in the summer as escaping from the Phoenix heat.  Joining me in the cooler area is a variety of birds from the cardinalidae family, probably the most vibrantly colorful of all the flying visitors.   The southern deserts of Arizona are a year-round home to two species in the family: the northern cardinal and the pyrrhuloxia.  Meanwhile the higher elevations of the state welcome at least seven additional species for at least part of the summer.   Last year I identified hepatic tanagers visiting my Prescott cabin's suet feeder for the first time.  They joined five other members of the family - black-headed grosbeaks, western tanagers, blue grosbeaks, summer tanagers, and lazuli buntings - that I also encountered in the area.  Meanwhile, rose-breasted grosbeaks also pass through on their migrations between winter homes in Central America and breeding habitats in the northe...

The start of my summer in Prescott - unofficially Memorial Day Weekend - is quite often a slow birding time for me.  It's the time of year when I begin making regular weekend escapes from the hot desert and follows a long spell when I don't visit for months at a time.  As a result the neighborhood birds are slow to investigate my yard as they've learned to survive elsewhere, in places without handouts of suet, seeds, peanuts, and both fresh and sugar water.   I was heartened to witness a flock of black-headed grosbeaks, long-distance migrants, gathering in the canopy of tall pines on a lane above my street.  Year-round residents like mountain chickadees flitted between oak tree branches near my neighbors' front door.  Even western bluebirds darted overhead as I jogged through the grounds of a nearby Christian retreat camp.  However after a couple of days, the feeders immediately off my cabin's deck still remained mostly quiet.  Acorn woodpeckers d...