Mike in the Wild

Last year I wrote about the birds I encountered on a trip to Germany and France.  It was a ten day vacation to see some sights along the Rhine and Mosel Rivers and in nearby Loraine.  What I might not have mentioned is that the trip finished with a visit to my aunt's home in rural Dellfeld, near Zweibrucken, in the Pfalz region of Southwestern Germany.   I went back to Europe last week, but this time just to Rheinland-Pfalz, and only to see my aunt.  The contrast in November weather with May's was notable, with long, sunny and warm days replaced with short, cloudy and cold ones.  While the late autumn scenery was colorfully scenic, the low temperatures made walks along the Schwarzbach, let alone any attempt at birding, frigidly unpleasant. But having an elderly aunt who's living alone means any visit is also an opportunity to help with home and garden projects.  And fortunately for me, Aunt Pat is as interested in her yard's wildlife as I...

Except for their varying sizes and wide range of colors, all tyrant flycatchers seem quite similar in appearance and behavior to me.   At least this is the case with the specific members of this largest of bird families that I encounter near my home in the American Southwest.  However, the vast majority of these New World species can be found in their diverse habitats throughout Latin America. In Arizona I can usually start to identify a flycatcher when I see a small bird perched upright on a pole or branch.  Of course many birds sit still from a safe vantage point like a street lamp, but it's only the flycatcher that I notice leaping and fluttering from that position in a unique acrobatic hunting display.  Nine times out of ten he returns to that exact same safe place to try his luck at another chance for more insects. Just last week on a short walk in my Phoenix neighborhood I encountered three flycatchers, all similarly hunting for bugs.  I believe e...

Earlier this year, I had my first confirmed encounter with a peregrine falcon when I witnessed one deftly hunting northern shovelers at Gilbert's Water Ranch.  It seemed appropriate to see him in flight as the raptor is renowned as the fasted animal on Earth.   And just this week, I saw one for the second time.  But on this occasion it was much closer to my home and was mostly earthbound, quietly perched atop a neighborhood tree.  I like to tell my friends that if you see a bird-of-prey in the wild, chances are it's a red-tailed hawk.  And if it's not that common raptor, it's probably a Cooper's hawk, quite similar in appearance except for striped tail feathers instead of solid red.  But which one you're seeing probably depends a lot on exactly where you are. I've traveled many miles of Arizona's quieter highways, off the busy interstates while on the way to birding hotspots like Madera Canyon, Page Springs and Santa Cruz Flats.  Along these ro...

One month into the fall season and it finally feels like autumn in Arizona.  Aspen trees in the mountains and cottonwoods in the river valleys all glow yellow against a backdrop of blue skies.  Meanwhile temperatures have dipped below freezing in many areas and desert homes have switched off their air conditioners and turned on their electric heat pumps.  And one more sign that it's almost winter - dark-eyed juncos are making a showy appearance. The red-backed member of this sparrow family is quite common in the pine forests of Arizona.  This form is one of several sub-species, or races, of the dark-eyed junco, a bird that ranges over most of Canada and the United States.  The juncos' separate breeding grounds in different corners of the continent seem to maintain the races' identifying traits, which are mostly found in coloring.   I've come to associate the red-backed sub-species with my leisurely visits to Prescott.  P redominately steel-gra...

You can drive to a lot of places in around four hours from Phoenix: the Grand Canyon, Palm Springs, Monument Valley, the White Mountains.  Oh, and the beach.  Yes, the beach, a real one, with surf, sand and salt water, and not located amid the Colorado River's reedy shores or fabricated in a kid-friendly water park in Mesa.   But you're probably wondering how fast you'd have to drive to get so speedily to the desert's nearest coastal destination of San Diego.   Well, when you're an Arizonan you don't always have to go to California to visit the ocean in the convenience of a car, stuffed to the gills with coolers and beach chairs.  An hour over the international border, in the Mexican state of Sonora, stretch hundreds of miles of coastline along the Sea of Cortez, or the Gulf of California as it is referred to there.   Its closest resort town is  Puerto Peñasco,  or Rocky Point as Americans call it.   The port has boo...

I recently wrote about Hawaiian honeycreepers, endemic birds to these Pacific islands that have struggled for survival due to the destruction of their habitats and, more recently, climate change.   Several cling to survival, but most species in this diverse family of birds have gone extinct.  But there is another family of endemic birds, the monarch flycatchers, that have fortunately fared better over the millennium that Hawaii has shared its landscape with mankind.  Monarch flycatchers are Old World passerine birds that populate sub-Sahara Africa, Southeast Asia, Australasia and some Pacific Islands.  The Hawaiian birds in the family make up their own genus, chasiempis.   And the three islands they inhabit are also the unique homes of the three separate endemic species in the genus: the Oahu 'elepaio, the Hawaii 'elepaio, and the Kauai 'elepaio. The three species of 'elepaios seem to have a greater immunity to the mosquito-born diseases that have ...

Swimming for hours with your face sealed in a snorkel mask and your feet paddling rubber fins may seem like one third of an arduous triathlon for most people.  But for me, with my inexpensive underwater digital camera attached at the wrist and snapping non-stop shots of a cornucopia of underwater life, it's a dream vacation.  And Tunnels Beach in Kauai might be the closest it comes to heaven for that kind of snorkeling on the Garden Island, if not in the whole state. Tunnels Beach is close to the end of the road on Kauai, where Route 560 or the Kuhio Highway, ends near the Na Pali Coast on the mountainous and scenic north shore of the island.   The beach is actually reached from Ha'ena State Park, where there is very limited parking but adequate facilities like a shower and restrooms, and more important, a lifeguard station.   However, they're all situated at an end of the beach where some lateral currents might be dangerous in certain conditions, ...