Mike in the Wild

I started the weekend in Prescott determined to photograph a band-tailed dove.  Flocking in large numbers, the species is supposed to nest in the forests around Prescott during the summer.  I've most likely ignored them on numerous hikes because I've assumed they were mourning doves, among the most common birds across Arizona.  After so many slights, I decided it was time to finally pause and appreciate the band-tailed variety. On a recent run through the woods near my cabin, I possibly spooked a few of these doves as I approached them.  The problem is I can't be sure I saw the namesake white bands on their outspread tails as they quickly flew away.  However I'm pretty sure these feathers had a wide, flat shape in sharp contrast to the pointed outline of the mourning doves'.  Alas, even had I lugged my heavy camera and lens along on my run, I'd not have been fast enough to snap an identifying shot. Last week, on another run, I noticed a pair of large pigeon...

My summers in Prescott always begin with much eagerness for the changes from my desert life in Phoenix: cool temperatures, dark night skies, monsoon thunder storms, verdant forest landscapes, an abundance of critters like skunks, and lots and lots of birds.   After nearing completion of my thirteenth season escaping some of the hottest temperatures in Arizona - not to mention record-breaking - I've not been disappointed on the subject of birds.  Every late spring I love reacquainting myself with the woodpeckers, jays, juncos, nuthatches and titmice that call the juniper and scrub oaks a full-time home.   But it might be the more challenging search for migratory birds that I most look forward to every year.  Plenty of neotropical birds that spend our cooler winter months in Central or South America breed in North America during our warm summer.  Orioles, warblers and cardinals are just a few of the avian families whose many species travel to or through ...

Maybe lightning does strike twice in the same place, or at least when it comes to spotting new cardinals in the wild.  After finding my first lazuli buntings migrating through my Prescott neighborhood last weekend, I was fortunate to find western tanagers in nearby Watson Woods.   While the buntings were indeed a first for me, what distinguishes my encounter with the tanagers is I actually got my first good photographs of this colorful bird.   The western tanager migrates from Mexico and Central America like a lot of cardinals, and like the blue grosbeak this species regularly breeds in the Prescott area.  Over the past couple years I've seen several flashes of yellow high in our cottonwoods and even once got a distant and grainy shot that showed his flaming red head.  But Sunday's walk in Watson Woods rewarded me with several encounters with at least one male that was patient and close enough to let me get my best photographs yet.   An i...