Mike in the Wild

Finding migratory birds in your hometown is exciting; in your backyard, sublime.  These brave birds sometimes travel thousands of miles, facing countless risks in their travels between winter habitats and summer breeding grounds.  When I encounter one in any location, I'm always awestruck, as I was when I photographed green-tailed towhee - a type of sparrow - visiting my Phoenix yard for the first time last week. Change is creeping into the air as autumn takes an unusually slow hold on us in Arizona.  Despite hot temperatures, I've also migrated, leaving the mountains in the northern part of the state to fend for better or for worse in my desert home full-time.  Shorter days, longer shadows and cool nighttime temperatures are beginning to make record-setting 100 degree days a little bit more tolerable.   Another sign that fall has arrived is that local golf courses have begun preparing their winter turfs.  Dethatching the thick Bermuda grass that thriv...

It's always an exciting moment when I'm outside and identify a bird for the first time.  Just this week I saw and photographed a green-tailed towhee at Phoenix' Desert Botanical Garden.  But a new find along with cooler desert weather weren't the only causes for excitement.  I soon realized that I had seen in my short time birding ALL the towhees that call the West their home. Spotted, canyon, California, Abert's and now green-tailed were all the birds in the region known as towhees and I had found and shot each of them.  They are all either in the genus pipilo or melozone, totaling thirteen living species in the Americas, five of which are found in the western United States and are now known by me.  There's a great amount of satisfaction knowing I can skim over my Western Peterson Field Guide's towhee page, not needing to analyze the details at length anymore. However on further analysis I discovered that towhees are in quite a large family of birds, t...