Weekly Articles by Eric Moore

I, for one, am hopeful for a more ‘normal’ non-COVID life in 2021, and see the return of some annual events such as the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival as a sign that things are starting to look up. While this year’s festival will adopt a hybrid model of both...

Over the years I’ve written on several occasions about the ravens that nest in our yard each year. While we live right in town, just off of Rosser Street, we are blessed to have a giant ponderosa pine tree in our yard, which is not a common tree in my neighborhood....

Between Friday and Saturday of this past week, I packed in a lot of birding and saw well over 100 different species. On Friday, I visited Page Springs, Bubbling Ponds and Sedona Wetlands. The highlight of my birding was seeing three different gull species at Sedona...

One of the guidelines for participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count is that you can bird anywhere — you are not restricted to just counting the birds you see in your yard. This rule creates greater flexibility for participants, and certainly bolsters the number...

A few weeks ago, a customer came up with a unique way to thank me and my store manager, Ryan, for a kindness we had shown him. His thank you included handing me a $100 bill — knowing that we wouldn’t accept the money personally — and asked me to donate the money to...

The weather this past week has been simply amazing. To go from virtually no precipitation for months and months to being buried by more than 20 inches of snow — depending where you live — has been both wonderful and dreadful. We’ve needed an abundance of moisture for...

If you were to ask me, “What is your favorite birding destination in the Phoenix metropolitan area?” My answer would be the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch, in Gilbert. Located at the intersection of Greenfields and Guadalupe, the Water Ranch boasts an impressive...

Over the last few weeks I have heard a few reports of individuals finding deceased pine siskins at their feeders. From time to time we receive reports of dead birds, which is always a concern. It is not unusual for birds to spread diseases at feeders — after all they...

As the owner of a backyard wild bird and nature store, I hear a lot of “bird reports” from customers, such as, “I just saw a crane out at Willow Lake!” I know what they thought they saw, but what they really saw was probably a great blue heron, because we don’t get...