Mike in the Wild

I just traveled over three hundred miles across and around Oahu seeking out its best snorkeling sites.  No place was more renowned on my list of eleven locations than Hanauma Bay.  It was also the most difficult to visit, requiring lots of preparation: a reserved ticket, a specific entry time, long lines, multiple check-ins, a reef-etiquette lecture, and, finally, an educational/safety video.  While its landscape set within a sunken volcanic crater was breathtakingly beautiful and its extensive reef's marine life magnificent, Hanauma Bay turned out to be much less impressive of a snorkeling spot than Shark's Cove, another spot on my list. Hanauma Bay on Oahu. In a snorkeling comparison, another Hawaiian island, Maui, has probably spoiled me.  Its northwestern and southern coastlines contain a multitude of resorts and guest lodgings that front miles of coral reefs laying an easy swim from shore.  Its not uncommon to leave your hotel room with your mask, snorkel, ...

After eight months away from the mountains of northern Arizona, I was eager to visit Watson Woods as soon as I settled back in my summer home in Prescott in late May.  The riparian preserve has always promised sightings of migratory birds like tanagers, grosbeaks, and occasionally even orioles.  Just as exciting have been the nesting great horned owls that I have witnessed.  However I wasn't expecting the posters along the park's trails alerting me to nesting bald eagles in the vicinity.  After scouring the landscape over the course of two visits, I was thrilled to observe both a fledged eagle and at least one of its dedicated parents.   Several summers ago while kayaking, I watched a bald eagle as it perched within the Dells, an expansive range of boulders and rock formations that border the northern end of Granite Lake.  Watson Woods lie at the southern end of the manmade lake, where Granite Creek normally fills the reservoir.  (A dry winter has...

An explosion of air startled me as I watered a backyard pot teeming with aloe vera plants.  I had inadvertently disturbed a Gambel's quail hidden in the foliage, triggering her into a sudden flight.  When I discovered her clutch of eleven tiny eggs nestled below the intertwining aloe arms, I immediately directed my garden hose into the cacti growing in some neighboring pots.  Over the next four weeks I endeavored to keep the nest off limits to everyone except the mother quail.   Initially I was concerned that the quail had completely abandoned my backyard and, subsequently, her nest.  However by the next day I observed a female quail periodically walking along the wall above the potted aloes.  And then a day or two later, when I poked my nose a little too closely into the plants, I scared the mother bird away yet again.  A short time after, I thankfully saw a single female quail, apparently the mother, return to the area. The first encounter began...

I was sitting on an expansive patio outside a downtown Phoenix building when I spotted a Townsend's warbler, my first of the year.  Even though I was only yards above ten lanes of busy traffic zooming by on I-10, the setting was surprisingly tranquil owing to four palo verde trees ablaze in their yellow springtime blossoms.  As the bird darted from one spindly branch to the next, it reminded me that we were in peak warbler migration season, when many species would either be migrating into Arizona or through the state for summer breeding.   It was easy to motivate myself early the next morning to drive forty-five minutes north to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area near the community of Cave Creek.  This gem of the Maricopa County Park system protected an unspoiled desert environment at the northern edge of Phoenix's vast urban sprawl.  More importantly the park surrounded a natural waterway that was part of a bird migration corridor.  Even though no wat...

The songs of my backyard's wintering white-crowned sparrows were still playing in my ears when I left my Phoenix home for a week-long, cruise.  It was a one-way, early-spring sailing from the port of Los Angeles to Vancouver, British Columbia.  I must have been attuned to the sparrows' plaintive melodies to quickly recognize the same calls and birds at most of the stops, namely in San Francisco; Astoria, Oregon; and Victoria, British Columbia.  However it was sea birds I was mostly seeking out, with one in particular, the tufted puffin, highest on my list.  Before setting off from Los Angeles I observed one unique sea bird right in the port: a lone western grebe.  It was floating and diving in the shadow of the colossal Grand Princess, my cruise ship for the journey.  The surrounding industrial complex that handles more cargo than any other seaport in the United States didn't strike me as ideal habitat for this elegant creature.  Squawking gulls and ba...