Mike in the Wild

By now, most seasonal visitors to Arizona's deserts have decamped for cooler climates north.  Any recreational vehicles you see on the state's highways are either heading in that direction or toward a pleasant seaside coast.  Likewise, many birds have taken weather cues and migrated to chillier breeding grounds. I thought I had exhausted all my chances of uncovering new, unseen-before winter visitors on the area waterways after I discovered my first canvasbacks and common mergansers in January.  But the season had one more treat in store for me after I ran into some buffleheads on Watson Lake in cooler Prescott this past week. While I did actually photograph a pair of males on nearby Willow Lake last year, this year I finally got to see a female along with what might be her breeding partner.  This species of duck doesn't tend to flock in any sizable numbers, and while they don't necessarily mate for life, individual males and females tend to breed and migrate tog...