Mike in the Wild

The highlight of my 2023 Western Caribbean cruise was the stop on the island of Roatan, Honduras's ultra-popular vacation spot.  The beautiful reef off West Bay Beach rewarded me with some of the best snorkeling of the entire trip. When I returned earlier this month on a similar cruise there was no doubt I'd head back to the site for another chance to witness the same underwater beauty.  Rather than rent a car like last year, I opted for the cruise port's $25 package tour that was not only cheaper than a taxi but included a short stop first at West End, a picturesque fishing village on the western side of Roatan.  The tour also guaranteed almost two hours at West Bay Beach, my real interest. However the tour's name was a misnomer, Hop-On Hop-Off, as it was definitely not a flexible mode of transportation, where you had the freedom to get on and get off buses at frequent stops.  Instead, passengers were obliged to start the trip in Mahogany Bay at a set time on a...

Leaving the comfort of a 3,500-passenger cruise ship after two full days at sea can induce a unique anxiety in most passengers.  If you're planning a long day away from the all-you-can eat buffet, ports of call throughout the Caribbean usually forbid visitors to bring any food ashore.  Fortunately, most ports like Cozumel or Belize have plenty of restaurants that are more than happy to sell margaritas and conch fritters as a supplement to the ship's fare.  And lucky for me, the six-hour tour I booked to the Mayan archaeological site of Kohunlich from the Regal Princess during its stop in Mahahual provided a small snack bag. Of course, touring Kohunlich wasn't about the food, it was about the history of the Mayans, the local indigenous population whose civilization dates back more than two thousand years.  The site in Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico was already settled by 200 B.C. and was abandoned almost a thousand years ago after an elaborate array o...

A cruise from Seattle to Honolulu sounded like a great idea.  I liked the line, Princess; the ship, the Royal, had the best running track at sea; and the price was cheap.  Plus with five days at sea, I was bound to encounter some pelagic birds like albatrosses and shearwaters.  But rain showers while boarding should have reminded me that good weather wasn't a guarantee. In Puget Sound shortly after our sail away, I witnessed a tight flock of birds flying close to the water's surface.  Unfortunately they were so distant it was hard to identify them as surf scoters or harlequin ducks or any specific coastal bird.  The only seabird I could clearly make out in the area was a type of gull, most likely a glaucous-winged.  I wasn't prepared for the next day at sea when high swells and constant, unpredictable motion caused me seasickness.  It was difficult to focus on the shipboard naturalist's lectures, let alone indulge in the 24-hour dining options.  F...

I've been to crowded Honolulu several times, even staying a night near the airport on my very first visit to Hawaii.  It happened over thirty years ago when I connected through on my way to the neighboring island of Kauai.  I later took a couple of vacations to Waikiki, Honolulu's most famous beach.  On one of those visits I rented a car for a few hours and drove around the entire island, witnessing the quieter and more rugged North Shore along with the picturesque East Shore with its exclusive coastal communities.   On my recent return to Oahu, I stayed for only thirty-six hours after disembarking in Honolulu in the morning off a cruise ship that had left Seattle five days before.  While I planned to overnight in a hotel at the quieter east end of Waikiki, it was the North Shore that was the main subject of my itinerary.  After picking up my rental car at the airport, I planned two days of snorkeling the coastline's most popular reefs, from Kulim...

There's no shortage of spectacular scenery at the Grand Canyon.  The vast, deep, dynamic landscape cascading from the miles of rim-side trails offers jaw-dropping scenery with every look.  Sunsets and sunrises offer even more magical views for the visitors that plan longer days.  And during my lucky stay overnight on the South Rim, the almost pitch-black darkness enforced throughout the National Park guaranteed some of the most stunning views imaginable of our planet's star-filled sky. On a moonless night I witnessed the Milky Way stretching overhead from the southern to the northern horizons, guiding my attention along the illuminated path its name connotates.  The Big Dipper lay low to the north, providing an easy guide to the North Star, Polaris. I was able to discern Andromeda, Earth's nearest neighboring galaxy, after approximating its location thanks to finding another constellation, Cassiopeia, whose distinctive W-shape points to it.  Sirius, the brightes...

I've had my not-so-secret favorite birding spots in the Prescott area for years: Dandrea Trail, Granite Basin Lake, Watson Woods, to name just a few.  But I never imagined that there was a special and easy-to-reach hotspot that the world kept secret from me for so many years.  And then just like that, a local birder spilled the beans and told me about Butterfly Spring on Mingus Mountain.   Well, he didn't actually tell me anything I couldn't have researched independently on the web or through eBird if I had dug a little deeply.  In fact the trails leading to the site are clearly identified on the National Forest's website.  In our conversation about warblers migrating through the area and about my luck finding varieties on Dandrea Trail below Mount Davis, this generous individual informed me that Butterfly Spring is often referred to as Warbler Spring.  Starting in the spring and throughout the summer, many species breed in the area and even more migra...

All it took was a glance from the deck into my Prescott yard to beckon me back to the warbler trail.  Looking up from my lunch toward a scraggly alligator juniper that's more of a bush than a tree, I spotted a peripatetic bird with a bright yellow head.  If I were in Phoenix, I'd have supposed it was a verdin, but among the pines at over a mile high I surmised it was a male hermit warbler.  And just like that, I was back to chasing warblers, reaching a new count of eleven individual species for the year.   The next day at close to the same time I witnessed another warbler, darting from branch to branch in the oak trees of my front yard.  I saw distinct black stripes which made me think it was a black and white warbler, an uncommon migratory bird to the area.  Circling my yard, I only captured a picture of a Bewick's wren high in a ponderosa pine tree.  I simply couldn't be as sure with this second warbler.  A couple of days later, I hit the f...