Mike in the Wild

This time last year I was writing about mushrooms and their variety of sizes, shapes, and colors sprouting along the trails surrounding my Prescott neighborhood.  Alas, a dearth of monsoon rain - not even four inches accumulated by mid-August - has greatly diminished the normal eruption of both mushrooms and wildflowers.  Fortunately another bellwether of the health of the area's summer life, the cardinals, haven't disappointed me.  It only took one visit to my cabin in late spring to see a profusion of black-headed grosbeak's at my feeders.  They've been multiplying in number all summer, raising offspring and eating well from my larder before their migration south next month.  Meanwhile even though they usually don't partake in the suet or seeds, I've sighted western tanagers several times in my yard.  And for the very first time, a male lazuli bunting recently started drinking from a bird bath and eating my seeds. Very early in the season I noticed summer...

Witnessing the seasonal bird migrants is as much a motivation to visit Prescott in the summer as escaping from the Phoenix heat.  Joining me in the cooler area is a variety of birds from the cardinalidae family, probably the most vibrantly colorful of all the flying visitors.   The southern deserts of Arizona are a year-round home to two species in the family: the northern cardinal and the pyrrhuloxia.  Meanwhile the higher elevations of the state welcome at least seven additional species for at least part of the summer.   Last year I identified hepatic tanagers visiting my Prescott cabin's suet feeder for the first time.  They joined five other members of the family - black-headed grosbeaks, western tanagers, blue grosbeaks, summer tanagers, and lazuli buntings - that I also encountered in the area.  Meanwhile, rose-breasted grosbeaks also pass through on their migrations between winter homes in Central America and breeding habitats in the northe...

The large number of cardinals that migrate through or into Arizona, not to mention the two colorful species of the family that live here year-round, were an early source of inspiration and excitement when I caught the birding bug a couple of years ago.   The scarlet-colored northern cardinal ranges over a wide swath of the state and its drabber cousin, the pyrrhuloxia, lives in the lower third, with both residing here year-round.  But most other members of the cardinalidae family that we might see are migrants, coming seasonally into the state for summer breeding or flying  through en route to their seasonal homes north or south.  It was this latter case when a lazuli bunting pair showed up briefly in my Prescott yard last spring.   What was the chance that during this year's fall migration the same bird might show up in my yard during its trip homeward?  Slim to none was my first thought, and to date I've not had to question that calcula...

I've written before that spotting a cardinal in the wild is always an exciting and colorful moment.  Many people call it the prettiest bird in the United States, and the fact that seven of our states call the avian their state bird probably makes that official. Arizonans are lucky that the northern cardinal - its official name - calls their state home.  And I am specifically fortunate that at least one pair lives in my central Phoenix neighborhood. Occasionally I hear the melodious and repetitive call of the male, and if fast getting my camera, I can get a shot of him high in a backyard tree or even higher in some neighborhood palm trees just beyond my yard's wall.  Recently, the female of the pair let me get some close shots of her in my lysiloma tree, allowing me some stealthy birding in the privacy of my own garden.   Her call seemed less elaborate than her partner's, only sounding like a sharp and repetitive tweep . The flash of the male's scarlet live...

There are a number of cardinal species in the Americas, with the brilliantly red-colored northern cardinal being the most famous in the United States.  But the Arizona deserts are a year-round home to another cardinal, the pyrrhuloxia.  Gray with red highlights, while sporting a pointier crest and stubbier beak than his famous cousin, he calls the American Southwest and the deserts of central Mexico home. Phoenix doesn't get a lot of sightings of the pyrrhuloxia, unlike Tucson's surrounding deserts almost a hundred miles to the south.  But a lone male seems to have taken up residence at the Desert Botanical Garden in the center of the metropolitan area's urban sprawl.  He seems to thrive in the acres of habitat that showcase the world's heat-loving and drought-tolerant flora. And this desert cardinal as he's sometimes called seems to be living at the northern-most limit of his species' range, providing a lucky chance for Central Arizona's birders to conv...

Spotting a cardinal in the wild is always an exciting and colorful moment.  Many people call it the prettiest bird in the United States, and the fact that seven of our states call the red avian their state bird probably makes that official.  In fact, this popular species that is really called the northern cardinal to be exact, is just one of many in a quite colorful family of - technically speaking -  cardinalidae . Traditionally, there were just a few birds in this taxonomic family.   But recently, science has determined through genetics that a number of grosbeaks, tanagers and buntings also belong in this classification.  It turns out that an older method of categorizing birds by their sizes, colors, and beak shapes didn't stand up to modern molecular analysis. So even though all the members of this expanded family of birds don't have the same shaped bill, the males are almost always brilliantly colored.   And their beaks are all strong enough to eat...