by Walt Anderson The Granite Dells is a sensational landscape at any scale, but the job of a serious photographer is to see such a place in a new light. In mid-day without a cloud in the sky, it becomes a bit challenging to find a subject that isn’t too contrasty, too flat, too “ordinary.”…

by Walt Anderson The pawed cast for this week includes some of the most charming of the rodents—chipmunks. Of the 25 species in the US, Arizona has 6, though the most widespread is the Cliff Chipmunk, star of this show. Its range runs from Utah and Colorado down through Arizona in a broad band from…

In 1864 Pedro Aquirre, Jr. created the Buenos Ayres Ranch. After passing through several owners it in the following century it became the centerpiece of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge when it was established in 1985. The Spring 2006 edition of the Journal of Arizona History published an article about the origin of Buenos…

By Walt Anderson There is a striking contrast between a MIME, one who performs silently by using gestures and motions, and a MIMIC, one who parrots or apes (funny how we use animal terms!) words or phrases or behaviors of another. The bird family Mimidae is anything but silent, and its members go far beyond…

Arizona has been enduring drought for quite some time. January storms this year provided some relief, though so many plants and animals were hurting from the lack of water that recovery may only be partial. Of course, waterbirds forsake the dry grasslands when the few ponds with standing water have dried up. Yet when the…