Mike in the Wild

I was sitting on an expansive patio outside a downtown Phoenix building when I spotted a Townsend's warbler, my first of the year.  Even though I was only yards above ten lanes of busy traffic zooming by on I-10, the setting was surprisingly tranquil owing to four palo verde trees ablaze in their yellow springtime blossoms.  As the bird darted from one spindly branch to the next, it reminded me that we were in peak warbler migration season, when many species would either be migrating into Arizona or through the state for summer breeding.   It was easy to motivate myself early the next morning to drive forty-five minutes north to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area near the community of Cave Creek.  This gem of the Maricopa County Park system protected an unspoiled desert environment at the northern edge of Phoenix's vast urban sprawl.  More importantly the park surrounded a natural waterway that was part of a bird migration corridor.  Even though no wat...

Migratory birds were on my mind when I visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix on Monday morning.  But it was still a little early in the spring to see black-headed grosbeaks or Bullock's orioles, two species I've witnessed in the park before.  Someone on eBird reported seeing a black-chinned hummingbird there recently but I failed to encounter it.  Instead, I settled on photographing an Anna's hummingbird feeding her two chicks in their nest.  I also captured some shots of two quite common winter visitors to the local deserts: an orange-crowned warbler and a yellow-rumped warbler.   The next day I found myself much further away from the Valley's urban sprawl at Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area.  Cave Creek was flowing through dense groves of cottonwood and mesquite trees, all framed by a landscape of saguaros rising up steep hillsides painted with wildflowers.  Only a biting chill delivered by relentless gusts of wind marred the pristine...

There are numerous signs that spring is in the air around Phoenix: major league baseball is playing its pre-season training games, pollen-filled air has us reaching for our allergy pills, birds are starting their noisy mating rituals.  But most notably for anybody hiking area trails is that reptiles - especially rattlesnakes - are waking up from their winter hibernation.  I had my first lizard sighting since autumn when I saw one scurry across my front porch last week.  It was a sunny, pleasant afternoon and the skinny reptile was probably savoring the same warmth I was.  In addition,  plants are in bloom and aloe flowers especially are replacing my backyard feeder's sugar water as the most popular nourishment for local hummingbirds.  After a cool and wet winter, the change in temperature is a welcome relief for all animals, including humans. It was an easy decision to drive forty minutes to Cave Creek for a morning hike in Maricopa County's Spur Cr...

While ambitions of photographing a snowy landscape recently led me to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation area, capturing images of the desert park's many birds might have filled just as much time on my recent visit. I saw many year-round residents like black-throated sparrows, cactus wrens, Abert's towhees, northern cardinals, curved-bill thrashers, house finches, verdins, black-throated sparrows, Gambel's quails and red-tailed hawks.  But a few winter visitors were there also, including flocks of western bluebirds, American robins and other sparrows like the white-crowned. On this clear, freezing morning very few people were hiking the park's many meandering trails.  These pathways cut through dense forests of mesquite trees, crossed a fast-moving Cave Creek and scaled saguaro cacti-filled canyons, all empty of animal life except for the birds that don't need any trails to thrive in the lush desert environment. Gambel's quails. Unidentified sparrow. ...

Record cold temperatures in the Phoenix area coupled with a strong and wet storm brought snow to the higher elevations of the surrounding Sonoran Desert.  The moisture is a welcome feature of this year's El Niño weather pattern that frequently causes the wetter than normal winter that Arizona and the surrounding region has experienced.   Any snow pack that accumulate in the state's highest mountains eventually feed the rivers, reservoirs and aquifers that quench the population's insatiable thirst.   But these high ranges are quite far from the bustling Phoenix metropolitan area, so it was a treat for highway commuters to see a white landscape closer to the urban sprawl's perimeter.   However the freezing late February temperatures that guaranteed the snowy vistas is not what attracted most of us to this sunbelt city - it's heat we crave. Nonetheless water in any form - even snow - gives life.   And as these pictures from Spur Cross Ranch ...

This park is over 2,000 acres of protected Sonoran Desert upland, with  surrounding mountain peaks reaching over 3,000 feet in elevation.  The area wasn't always a pristine landscape as evidence of mining and ranching is apparent throughout the preserve.  But it's Cave Creek - not the eclectic community just to the south but the seasonally flowing riparian habitat - that is the big draw today.  Along with the distinctive Elephant Mountain in the park's western sector, the preserve offers the best in desert exploration.  Dozens of mile of trails meander through dense forests of mesquite trees, along babbling cottonwood tree-lined brooks and above canyons of saguaro cacti. Before the miners, ranchers and hikers, it was ancient native people who called this newest addition to the Maricopa County Regional Park System home.   While archaeological sites exist, they are mostly off the well-marked main trails - ranger-guided hikes are required to visit them. ...