bird song

Jarbidge Summer

The Jarbidge Mountain area, in far northeastern Nevada, is considered one of the most remote areas in the lower 48.  So naturally, I wanted to check it out, but was a little intimidated by some skirmishes between local ranchers and federal land managers.  So when Lang Elliot, in the midst of his sound recording tour […]

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Night sounds in a desert canyon

Like many nature recordists, I’m a bit obsessed with recording the spring dawn chorus.  It’s dynamic variety, changing by the minute, the day, the season, the habitat, is like candy for the ears.  However, I’m almost as fascinated by the night sounds – the singing insects and amphibians, the owls, the night jars, and the

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Travels in southern Utah

In late June, 2016, I travelled through southern and eastern Utah, looking for good places to record wildlife and good places to hike.  So after I left wolf country, I headed north.  It was still hotter than blazes, so rather than seeking colorful sandstone, I was looking for cool, shady forests.  I had recently re-read

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El Lobo, part 3: surrounded by ghosts

In June of this year, I headed back to lobo (Mexican wolf) country in northern Arizona.  I drove up to a remote camping area near Escudilla Mountain, arriving on a cloudy and windy  afternoon.  On the way up to the camp site, I passed several elk cows with small calves at their heels.  I set up

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Burned forest in the Chiricahua Mtns.

Chiricahuas Revisited

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

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Till the cows go home

With some writing projects behind me (or at least on someone else’s desk for a while), I finally have some time to get out and do some recording.  In mid May, I headed south to Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, which is a lovely swatch of rolling grassland and riparian areas, only about 25 miles

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Spring in the Sonoran Desert

It’s been a warm spring here in the Sonoran Desert.  Temperatures have been running 10 to 15 degrees above normal for weeks.   The super El Niño we were looking forward to moved up to the Pacific Northwest, leading to disappointment over the prospect of a super flower year (although I hear parts of central California

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Mountain Voices

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

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Turkey Creek, Chiricahua Mountains

Turkey Creek

My kitchen remodeling effort is finally complete, so a couple of weeks ago I packed up the car with camping gear and headed to Turkey Creek.  It seems as if most of the mountain ranges in the southwest US have a “Turkey Creek.”  I imagine this says something about the ubiquity of wild turkeys at

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Along a desert wash

I haven’t had the opportunity to get out much this spring, caught up in renovating my kitchen and other assorted household chores.  But I managed to break away last week to take the dog for a walk in a nearby wash.  This wash drains the nearby Rincon Mountains, and although dry most of the year,

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Dragoons by dedhed1950

Seeking a little quiet

I need quiet the way an alcoholic needs a drink.  By “quiet” I don’t mean absolute silence, the kind that can only be found in an anechoic chamber.  My version of quiet is free from man-made noise, anthropophony, in Bernie Krause’s terms.  No machines, no screaming and yelling, no loud music.  Sometimes I really crave

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Alert Grackles

Bird Conversations

My last stop on my summer journey from Carson City to Tucson, after a brief stay in Pinetop, Arizona, was the San Francisco River in New Mexico.  There is a designated birding area south of Glenwood that provides a parking lot and access to the river. It was mid-day and sweltering when the dog and

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