Mike in the Wild

The tragic headlines recounting a local person's death by bear attack did not deter me from heading up the Dandrea Trail to where, five years ago, I had seen my one and only wild bear in Arizona.  What did prevent me from returning to that contact spot was damage from last year's Crook's Fire which closed the trail up near the peaks, the highest in the Bradshaw Mountains.  Lucky for me on this past Monday I discovered I didn't need to venture very far and high into Prescott's forests to see my second bear; I only had to wander the trails that lead from my own neighborhood.   For a week in June, the news reports in Prescott were filled with the story of a Groom Creek resident tragically mauled to death by a black bear, apparently without any provocation.  The victim's neighbor shot the bear dead while it was consuming the dead man.  Fortunately my own encounter on the Dandrea Trail so long ago was a much less harrowing encounter.   In fact it was o...

By this point in July, I thought I'd be sitting under the wide eaves over my deck in Prescott enjoying the afternoon rainstorms that accompany the summer monsoon.  But so far the weather is unusually hot and dry, more June than July-like.  In fact with heavy showers in May, that month was more winter-like.  However, the arrival of rufous hummingbirds at my feeders on July 1st reminded me that some things in nature might still remain predictable. Rufous hummingbirds migrate north from Mexico in the spring, following a mostly coastal route to the Pacific Northwest.  Some birds even travel as far as southeast Alaska to mate and nest.  His work accomplished, the male of the species starts his migration home through the Rocky Mountain states, leaving the female to rear the young on her own.  It's these absentee fathers I've started seeing in Prescott.  Later in the summer and after the males have left, the females and juveniles begin their own migrations....

Warblers were still on my mind as I started my early July hike up the Dandrea Trail in the Bradshaw Mountains south of Prescott.  After all, they were already an obsession when I starting counting all the possible species I could see in Arizona as the colorful family of songbirds migrated into the state this past spring.    After spotting at least one yellow warbler in Prescott in April, my number of individual species encounters was up to nine for the season.  I reckoned I might achieve as many as thirteen as I wandered the trails around Prescott over the summer, especially at the higher elevations where the Dandrea leads.  Through dense pine forests, the rocky trail connects to the region's highest peaks, Mount Union and Mount Davis, both close to eight thousand feet in elevation. I've spotted red-faced warblers and painted redstarts along the trail before, the former being the one I was most looking forward to because I'd not seen one yet in 2023.  Howev...