Mike in the Wild

There's no more enchanting sound in nature than the nighttime hooting of great horned owls.  And most of us living in North America are fortunate to hear them, as the birds dwell almost everywhere on the continent.  However I was recently surprised to discover that the shrieking skeeeets  I was hearing nightly this summer in Prescott were also the vocalizations of these beautiful birds.  In fact I met the two screamers early in the season, just as monsoon clouds started gathering for the first time on a humid evening shortly before sunset.  I had hiked to a neighborhood trailhead that leads into Prescott National Forest to get a better view of the menacing skies from a higher vantage point.   Intimidating flashes of lighting and bursts of thunder emanating from dark clouds eventually cut my walk short.  But just before I left the trail, two caterwauling birds drew my attention.   I quicky spotted them roosting atop adjacent juniper trees...

A visit to Watson Woods in Prescott usually brings an exciting surprise or two; on a very few rare occasions, it's a disappointing day.   I've had a lot of luck finding interesting birds in the park over the years, especially colorful migratory species like western tanagers and blue grosbeaks.  And last year I encountered some spectacular year-round residents: a nesting great horned owl with her owlets.  But every once in a while I "strike out," seeing only more commonplace birds - ones I see on EVERY visit - like American robins and violet-green swallows. So I was hopeful to find a tanager or two on Monday's visit, along with maybe some nesting owls.  While I'm happy to find any critter to photograph, I like to have an ambitious objective in mind when I set off for  this riparian preserve along Granite Creek just south of Watson Lake.   My digital pictures are a useful tool for my goals because of their automatic date stamps.  And my na...

Two weeks ago, "The New Yorker" featured a cartoon cover showing a cardinal father dotingly tending to his chicks in a nest secured in a normally improbable spot: atop a traffic signal in a crowded urban neighborhood.  Titled "Shelter in Place," the artwork shows a woman looking at the birds longingly from her open apartment window.   It might be ironic that in our current period of pandemic it feels like our quieter streets and landscapes are making us safer from other threats.  As a runner, I can attest firsthand that there are fewer cars whipping by on the normally busy roads and that the Phoenix air is much cleaner.  But is it possible that sports-minded humans are not the only species benefiting from the lockdown?   Most notable on my runs along the Arizona Canal are the mallard ducklings that have recently hatched.  I have seen broods as large as seven individual babies and as small as four.  But what's fascinating is that after two ...