Mike in the Wild

July brought the first rufous hummingbirds to my Prescott cabin.  Usually they arrive amidst the commotions of the first monsoon storms, right at the beginning of July.  However the early rains of June seemed to confuse the birds' arrivals, postponing them until later in the month.  Nevertheless, robust males eventually pushed the dominant Anna's hummingbirds out of my yard and away from my sugar water feeders for part of the summer. By August, juveniles and females started arriving and the males began leaving the area, continuing their migrations south.  These late arrivals kept on mostly winning the battles against the Anna's - but not against any lingering rufous males - for total domination of the feeders.   As September welcomed autumn this week, the late arrivals mostly decamped.  A few cold weather-tolerant stragglers still remained, stealing a sip from the sugar water or a wildflower.  The next time I visit Prescott in early October, the f...

Watching the birds at my Prescott feeders grew a bit mundane as the days were shortening in early September.  All the tanagers and grosbeaks, along with the male rufous hummingbirds, had mostly migrated south.  These colorful migrants left the suet and seeds to the year-round mountain residents: nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, and bushtits, all markedly plainer and predominately dressed in black, white, and shades of gray.  The only bright colors were the blues of the scrub jays and the yellows of the goldfinches. A tell-tale sign of the change in seasons was when a new bird appeared several weeks ago, a chipping sparrow that was soon  followed by a second.  Regular late summer visitors, they've been exploring my yard ever since, harvesting the seeds of drying wildflowers and even scavenging scattered millet kernels from below my own seed feeder.  With a plain buff chest and a streaked black-and-brown backside, the most distinguishable feature of the spar...

The biggest fear for every Arizonan is running into a rattlesnake, worse even than encountering a scorpion or tarantula.  While it's not uncommon to find the two arachnids around your home, you're fortunately much less likely to find a rattlesnake in your yard.  I actually thought I discovered a baby rattler in my garden two weeks ago while watering a recently planted tree.  The small snake squirmed and slithered while the water slowly encroached in the planter box.  Only about a foot long and quite skinny, the reptile looked like a rattlesnake to me except for its lack of a rattle, which hasn't yet formed in very young rattlers.  With a yard-long garden stake, I raised the timid snake to get a better look and snap a few photos with my cellphone before finally allowing the animal to coil defensively in a tiny, dry landscape light. The snake isn't the only reptile living in my Phoenix backyard.  As soon as the days begin to lengthen in late winter, a large d...