Mike in the Wild

Every competitor wants to soar with eagles, reaching the pinnacle of success in their pursuits.  It's why our televisions are tuned to bake-offs and sports competitions; we want to see the very best cooks and athletes.  And it was this trophy bird, the bald eagle, that was my target when I headed over to Indian Bend Wash in Scottsdale.   The wash is actually a greenbelt of parks, golf courses, bike paths and lakes that comprises eleven miles of a flood diversion channel.  A couple of years ago a pair of bald eagles nested in the area and promoted birdwatching to the list of activities available in the development.  But it seems the eagles have moved on to a less crowded habitat as I can't find a record of their sighting this last year.  And I didn't spot them myself in the little corner of the park I visited yesterday.  However near Indian Bend Road, close to the Silverado Golf Club and the Arizona Canal, three different species of flycatchers...

Everyone knows I like to write about the ducks visiting Arizona's waterways during the winter.  Most of these birds are escaping the colder temperatures of their summer breeding ranges far away in northern latitudes.  One species I've seen regularly this season is the green-winged teal.   While I've not observed any in my Phoenix neighborhood, I have encountered flocks of them at two locations in the state.   The first teals I saw were the several individuals wintering at the Riparian Preserve in the city of Gilbert's Water Ranch complex in early January.  And on a quick stop at Watson Lake in Prescott this past February I observed what appeared to be a larger flock of more than a dozen.    They're not the easiest birds to photograph for a couple of reasons: they're always on the water and they're wary of human spectators.   So with my new 400mm sized Tamron lens attached to my Canon, I was anxious to return to Gilbert and get...

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...

I've written a few times about longing for the winter visitors that I'd normally see on my neighborhood birding trail by now.  Two years ago, I was excited to encounter my first wood duck - a male - on the lower pond at Granada Park.  While small, he was probably the prettiest of the winter waterfowl that migrate to or through this part of Arizona during the season.   Last year I encountered another one swimming on the Arizona Canal that divides my Biltmore community in half.  Like the individual from the previous year, he was in a group of mallards, and was standing out because of his diminutive size and bright plumage.  He didn't stick around that part of the waterway for long, and was the last wood duck I'd see until I got lucky again at Granada Park last week.  I probably pass near this urban recreation space daily on my various drives throughout the city.   In the winter, I like to stop by every ten days or so with my camera in case ...

I write a lot about the sounds I hear in the wild: the hoot of an owl, the melody of a mockingbird and the squawk of a woodpecker, to name just a few.  But the song of a canyon wren might be one of the most beautiful in the bird world as it beckons the hiker and birdwatcher like a Siren calling Odysseus.  And there's a double reward because spotting this tiny bird is also a singular visual delight, well worth the effort and patience it might take. Fitting for such a special bird, each memory of my three life-time encounters with the canyon wren is indelibly etched in my brain.  The first time I saw one was at Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Arizona's oldest and largest botanical garden, located an hour east of Phoenix in Tonto National Forest.   The individual of this wide-ranging bird species was perched on a boulder in the Sonoran Desert Exhibit and initially seemed more curious about me than I was of him; I was new to birding and didn't quite know the differenc...

I had just finished lamenting   in my last post   over the dearth of "wow" moments in this year's bird sightings when I drove into just such an event three houses up the street from my home.  In fact I actually drove under an entire flock of them. I've seen cedar waxwings only once before, near my sister-in-law's home in Ventura County near Los Angeles.  There might have been two dozen of them gathered high in some trees in that tightly manicured neighborhood.  Even when I was more than twenty feet below them, my camouflaged presence so close to their perch's leafy canopy scared them away.  Nevertheless they kept returning to the same couple of trees which allowed me to get a few photographs over the course of a weekend. I wasn't quite that lucky with last week's sighting though.  As I drove along my street, I noticed the group of birds in a palo verde tree.  Since the tree hadn't burst into its spring blooms yet, the eight or nine individual ...

By this time every year I've usually written a couple of stories about the waterfowl visiting local waterways.  Phoenix is crisscrossed by canals carrying fresh water from reservoirs up the Salt River and by parks landscaped with lakes.  These bodies of water create habitat for lots of waterfowl, especially seasonal migrants from northern climates. Last winter for the first time in the neighborhood, I discovered mergansers - both the hooded and common varieties - and canvasbacks spending some time on these local waterways.  They joined my list of local first time sightings, a collection that includes wood ducks, northern pintails, goldeneyes and northern shovelers, to name a few. But this year is different.  My stops at nearby Granada Park allow me to see a multitude of visitors like ring-necked ducks and American wigeons: they're there every winter.  And I spot plenty of mallards dabbling in the Arizona Canal and American coots paddling on my neighborhood's...