Mike in the Wild

There are lots of signs the seasons are changing - longer days, warmer temperatures and a few replacements in the neighborhood birds.   In Phoenix, my yard's white-crowned and Lincoln's sparrows have departed for cooler climates north, but the cliff swallows have reappeared from the south for nesting under bridges.  Meanwhile, farther north in the mountains some migrants have returned to their summer breeding grounds.  In Prescott specifically, I've just observed a male black-headed grosbeak visit my home's seed feeder.  This is the third year I've paid attention to the bird's comings and goings, and have enjoyed learning about the species in the process.  This particular grosbeak species winters in Mexico, with the nearest areas to Arizona being in the states of Baja California Sur or Sinaloa.  It may fly as far north as Western Canada in the summer, so this individual didn't expend as much energy in his migration as others in its family could hav...

When I recently started to research and write about the round-tailed ground squirrel that I frequently see scurrying about our desert landscape, I was surprised to discover that there are actually THREE separate ground squirrel species native to the area.  As it turns out, the chipmunks I've observed and photographed are in fact Harris' antelope squirrels, one of these ground squirrels. And a bigger squirrel I've mostly ignored is in fact a rock squirrel.  More interested in native birds, I assumed he was just a buff-colored variety of the common tree squirrel that populates most American city parks.  I don't even have any photographs from my vast library of animal pictures to share. The round-tailed ground squirrel hibernates in the winter and emerges from his underground den in the spring.  Aptly named, all three ground squirrel species live underground, an adaptation to an environment not densely filled with tall trees. Finally, one of my favorite wildlife p...

"Stop calling that  bird a robin redbreast, it's a plain, old robin," are words that resonated in my mind when I first started photographing this avian a couple years ago.  The childhood chastisements were from the older neighborhood kids who wanted to show how much they knew.  While bruising my ego a little, they didn't dampen my interest in this very common and easily identifiable bird in my suburban New Jersey neighborhood.   Many years later and many miles away, and much to my surprise, I also see the bird in my Phoenix neighborhood.  I've always associated the robin with green lawns, pulling earth worms from the muddy ground of just watered grasses.  It turns out that the irrigated landscape of the desert southwest is an ideal hunting ground for this insect loving avian.  It also turns out that this "robin redbreast" isn't just a plain old robin, it's an American robin.   A real robin is actually the European robin, not living ...

What does my humble blog have to do with Africa's big five?  It'll be a while before you read about rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards or cape buffaloes in my posts.  After all, I'm still mostly writing about Arizona wildlife and local natural history.  But the term big five came to me as an apt description when I noticed I was seeing the same five heron species every time I explored the Phoenix area waterways. Herons are in the ardeidae family, and live along freshwater shores.  In Phoenix, their habitats are mostly near our parks' man-made lakes, so it's easy to find all five species at the same time you're admiring the ironic abundance of water in our arid landscape.  Some members of the large family are called egrets while others are bitterns. The five I consistently notice when hiking, running or just plain birding near some local lakes are the great blue heron, great egret, black-crowned night heron, snowy egret and green heron, listed in order of size...

Furtive and wary, every wood duck I've encountered in the wild unsurprisingly flees as I try to approach and photograph it.   So I was surprised when the lone male reported visiting Phoenix' central Grenada Park displayed none of this behavior. He initially blended in with the much more numerous mallards and ring-necked ducks that frequent the city park's lake, all begging for handouts by human visitors.  Clearly he wanted to remain unnoticed.   But when it was feeding time, he joined the commotion and rushed toward the hands that were tossing seeds at the waterfowl.  Up close, it was easy to see the crisp markings and bright colors for which he's famous.  Dropping his normally cautious behavior, maybe he was as hungry as the other ducks. Another surprising quality of this wood duck was that he was alone, without others of his species. And just as unexpected was that this bird's lake was not surrounded by the dense deciduous woods that normally com...

In southern Arizona, at the junction of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, rise the Santa Rita Mountains  This small range is known as a sky island because it has an isolated and varied environment compared to the surrounding arid deserts.  In terms of its flora and fauna, it has more in common with the nearby Sierra Nevada range in Mexico than it does with North America's Rocky Mountains.  As a result, a number of birds only venture as far north as this part of our continent. The most popular area of the Santa Ritas to visit is Madera Canyon.  The Coronado National Forest maintains a paved road several miles along Madera Creek, affording access to a number of trailheads, picnic areas and a campground.  As a result, a hike through dense pine forests to the highest peak, Mount Wrightson at 9,453 feet, is possible, albeit a bit challenging.  But lower in the range, springs and seasonal creeks feed lush riparian areas filled with sycamore and oak trees. ...