It’s been a horrible year for fires out west. I’ve spent much of the summer dodging smoke and trying to find areas to record that are not on fire. Southeastern Arizona is a naturally fire-prone area, with much of the flora and fauna adapted to wildfires from dry lightning storms at the start of the […]
The Chiricahua Mountains are one of the largest of the “Sky Island” ranges that separate the Sierra Madre of Mexico from the Rocky Mountains of the US and Canada. It is a rich, convoluted mountain range, and like most of the adjacent ranges, high in plant and animal diversity. These ranges are subject to frequent wildfires, and
Chiricahuas Revisited Read More »
I made my annual summer migration from southeastern Arizona to northern Nevada a few weeks ago, stopping to record along the way. My first stop was in the Blue Range of east-central Arizona, a land of conifers and beautiful grassy meadows. Much of this area was impacted by the 2011 Wallow Fire, and the hillsides
On my recent stop at the Gila River Bird Area (see Nighttime Visitors), I was reminded again what a dynamic, ever-changing place it was. The Gila River was still receding from a significant flood just 2 weeks prior, in which up to 10 inches of rain dumped in the heart of the Gila Wilderness during
Of Fire and Flood: Dynamics of the Upper Gila River Ecosystem Read More »
