Mike in the Wild

I knew I'd return and, finally, thirteen months later I did.  But on my recent visit to Pelican Rock in Cabo San Lucas, I left the diving equipment behind and only brought a mask, snorkel, and fins.  It had turned out I didn't like diving when I tried it on my previous visit; the bubbles, ear pressure, and hand signals flustered me.  Exploring unencumbered by weights and equipment at the water's surface was a much better fit for me.  And besides, for me, there were just as many discoveries close to sea level as at thirty feet below.  Cabo has many places to snorkel, mostly all of them on the Sea of Cortez side of the Baja California Peninsula.  On stops off of multiple cruises, I've booked various excursions by catamaran and zodiac to Chileno Bay and Santa Maria Cove.  Sea life abounds and coral reefs thrive just a short swim off of these beautiful beaches.  You can even drive up the scenic Federal Highway 1 and park at an adjacent resort on either of the playas.  But w

It's been well over a month since I last visited my cabin in Prescott.  After a fifteenth consecutive year of bidding adieu in the early autumn, I knew I would miss the birds that inhabit the pine and oak trees that surround my forest retreat.  No more bridled bushtits and juniper titmice until at least the spring.  However shortly after I returned to Phoenix full-time, a quite familiar Prescott bird, a ladder-backed woodpecker, started paying regular visits to my desert hummingbird feeder for the very first time. This woodpecker is common in my neighborhood and the wide expanse of desert that encompasses Phoenix.  But the black and white creature is also quite common in Prescott where the elevation is over a mile high, creating a much colder and wetter climate: a welcome reprieve to the desert's unrelenting summer heat.  Interestingly, the ladder-backed seems to be the one and only woodpecker species that calls both environments a year-round home.  The flickers that also inhab