Mike in the Wild

It's not every weekend I look up into a back yard tree and find a new bird.  After four or five years of avid birdwatching, there are fewer and fewer surprises in my Phoenix neighborhood.  Nonetheless on Saturday I spotted my very first phainopepla in the area, and it was in my yard's lysolomo tree. Over the last couple of weeks, I've actually been paying a lot of attention to what birds are not in my yard.  Winter visitors like a lone Lincoln's sparrow and several white-crowned sparrows have probably already begun their migrations north.  Meanwhile a pair of northern cardinals have stopped indulging in my sunflower seeds.  However a  male does occasionally whistle a mating song from a couple of houses away, apparently in vain as there never seems to be a female in the vicinity.   On my trips out of the city into the undeveloped desert, phainopeplas are frequently some of the first birds I see atop the palo verdes along the road.  They ...

Scrub jays: check.  Acorn woodpeckers: check.  Nuthatches: check.  Juncos: check.  All birds are present and accounted for on another June day at the Prescott cabin as their familiar songs and calls give away their identities before I can spot them. However I theorize that May might be a more active month than June for bird sightings in the area for a couple of reasons.  For one, the weather starts to warm up after a winter of freezing temperatures.  That's when I start making regular trips to Prescott where I spend most of my time outdoors re-familiarizing myself with the native bird population.  But more importantly, it's the height of spring migration so a number of tanager and grosbeak species, to name just a few, pass through en route to area breeding grounds.  Once monsoon activity brings quenching rain to the area in July, bird sightings seem to pick up again as some species like rufous hummingbirds stop over as they make their long migr...

While you expect cacti and rugged terrain on a desert hike, grassland isn't usually a prominent feature.  By visiting the McDowell Sonoran Preserve from Brown's Ranch Trailhead in far north Scottsdale, you begin to appreciate how this open land supported the Brown family's cattle farm for many years. The ranch is long gone, but a vast network of trails crisscross the property through prairie, washes and mountain peaks, offering an escape into the high desert.  Various yucca's, many blooming, are also a unique addition to the landscape. I hiked almost five miles in an area around the dominant peak in this section of the park, Brown's Mountain.  From the Trailhead, I took Upper Ranch Trail to Wrangler Trail to Brown's Mountain Trail up to the saddle.  From there, I took the summit spur to gaze at the panorama from a lofty and cool 3,253 feet. I continued down on Brown's Mountain Trail back to Upper Ranch Road in a loop around the north side of the landmark t...

It's a short and easy hike that promises a good look at the ancient cultures, riparian areas and grassland mesas that the park is protecting. Lightly streaming water crisscrosses the one mile descent from the mesa-top trailhead along the course of  the Badger Springs Wash.  Just before its confluence with the Agua Fria River you're greeted by a collection of ancient petroglyphs high on canyon walls.  Upriver to this waterway are massive, rounded boulders with several waterfalls. Meanwhile, all around you is a lush riparian area with tall cottonwoods and deep water.   While the trail ends at this point, the park service encourages you to explore the banks of the river.  Flora and fauna abound, with wildflowers and grasses thriving during my early spring trip.  I was able to identify a number of desert birds, including phainopeplas, Costa's hummingbirds, house wrens, canyon wrens and verdins.  I saw a medium-sized red bird that could have been a car...