When you travel alone, like I usually do, its important to know your own physical limits as well as the limits of your equipment. The latter became an issue for me when I attempted to go exploring in the Henry Mountains of Utah this last summer. I’ve had my eye on the Henry’s for awhile; […]
Knowing your limits Read More »
This last summer, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Nature Sounds Society, which met near Yuba Pass, California. I was able to tie the meeting in with my annual summer visit to family in northern Nevada. Yuba Pass is north of Truckee, California, and is a beautiful area of towering
Learning from the pros Read More »
On my June road trip from southern Arizona to northern Nevada, I made a stop just southwest of Ely, Nevada. Ely is surrounded by interesting mountain ranges, such as the Egan, Schell Creek, and Snake Ranges, some of which I’ve written about in previous posts. On this trip I picked the White Pine Range to
Wild horses in the Great Basin Read More »
September 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act, which has helped protect more than 100 million acres (about 5% of the total acreage of the United States) from human development. Passage of the Act was a hard-fought battle, taking 8 years and many, many revisions. It has been amended numerous
The Sounds of Wilderness Read More »
Among the long list of interesting creatures that call southern Arizona home are a couple of species of nectar-feeding bats, the Mexican Long-tongued bat and the Lesser Long-nosed bat. Unlike most bats that feed on insects, nectar-feeding bats feed on the nectar of large flowers of cacti. They are well-known to most southern Arizonans that
Thunderstorms are the ultimate in chaotic systems, and this years monsoon has been a good example of that. Some parts of southern Arizona have received plenty of rain and are green and lush. Others have received too much rain too fast, resulting in flash floods. And other places, like my neighborhood, have been watching these
Spotty rain and lonely toads Read More »
In mid-June of this year (2014), I continued on my quest to record the howls of lobos (Mexican gray wolves). This time I headed for the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in east-central Arizona, to the wild country along the west fork of the Black River. I met up with Jean Ossorio (who actually planned the trip)
El lobo, part 2: Greenfire’s Ghost Read More »
Humans have had a long, uncomfortable relationship with wolves. Revered, feared, hated, and persecuted to within an inch of extinction, their survival to this day says more about their resilience than our ability to understand and tolerate what we are now learning to be one of the most important predators in the northern hemisphere. We
El lobo, part 1: Restoring balance Read More »
It’s a sad irony that one of our most important senses, hearing, is so taken for granted. So much information about the world around us comes in through our ears, but we place such precedence on what comes through our eyes. We are very visual creatures, granted, with an ability to see color and detail,
“What are you going to do with those recordings?” Read More »
Close to the US-Mexico border, where New Mexico and Arizona meet Chihuahua and Sonora, lies one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. More than a dozen small mountain ranges rise from the surrounding desert, and are often referred to as “Sky Islands”, as their forested slopes appear to be islands in a sea of grassland and
Summer has officially arrived in southern Arizona, even if the calendar says it’s still a couple of weeks off. Daytime temperatures in Tucson have exceeded 100 Fahrenheit for the last several days, and are expected to stay above 100 for the foreseeable future. One of the few things that makes this kind of heat tolerable
Swamp coolers and cicadas Read More »
As readers of my blog know, I like squirrels. I professed my love for them in a previous post. In this post, I want to go into greater depth on one of the most socially complex squirrels, the prairie dog. There are 5 species of prairie dogs in North America, although most detailed studies have
Listening to prairie dogs Read More »
