Mike in the Wild

Counting birds for the Arizona Game and Fish Department was a volunteer activity right up my alley.  Conducted on one Saturday every January, it surveyed wild aquatic birds at urban lakes, ponds, and canals throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.  This information helps urban planners and wildlife managers manage these populations as well as identify potential opportunities for the public to view the birds.  For me, it was also a chance to check out the Gainey Ranch Golf Club in North Scottsdale before their nine o’clock tee time.  The fairways meander around five manmade lakes that lie within a small section of Scottsdale’s Indian Bend Wash - eleven miles of parks, lakes, paths, and golf courses that embellish a flood control project.  Migratory birds as well as year-round avian residents thrive in these desert oases.    Over the course of an hour and a half, I tallied all the birds at Gainey, including the commonplace ones like the twelve m...

I’d been to Barbados four or five times already, so it wasn’t exactly new on my six-stop Eastern Caribbean cruise. The island had plenty to admire—history, culture, scenery—but this time I did what I could’ve done anywhere in the region: hit the beach and go snorkeling Carlisle Bay Beach was a no-brainer—just a five-minute taxi ride from the cruise port. For $35, I scored a chaise and umbrella steps from the water, a complimentary rum drink, plus a guided snorkel to not one, but two shipwrecks.  And yes, sea turtles were basically a promise. The mile-long beach sat at the far end of crowded Bridgetown, Barbados’s capital. White sand, calm water, blazing sun, water sports—it checked every Caribbean box.  And, inevitably, so did the winter crowds. The numbers didn’t feel overwhelming until we crammed onto a pontoon boat for the short ride to our first stop, the Berwyn. In the water, at least two other snorkeling groups hovered over the century-old wreck.  Hundreds of arms a...