What are you looking for?

A state of vertical journeys: Sonoran Desert at dawn, cottonwood rivers by midmorning, and cool conifer forest before the day is out.

Nine landscapes worth building a trip around—ranked by habitat value and the kind of field day each one offers.

A field-ready route through grassland, sycamore shade, oak woodland and public feeder stations on the north slope of the Santa Ritas.

Follow the state uphill—from prairie reservoirs and cottonwood rivers to foothill forest, alpine tundra and the dry Western Slope.

An ocean-to-desert field strategy for the most habitat-diverse state in the country.

Build one deliberate northern journey—from tidal marsh and seabird water to boreal forest, alpine country and open tundra.

Birding destinations organized by habitat, season and field use.

Find the voice first. Then search shaded sycamore-and-oak canyon for a still, stout bird that can disappear in plain sight.

A field guide to finding the continent’s largest soaring land bird without approaching a roost, nest or feeding site.

Why male House Finches can be yellow, orange or red—and how to separate pigment variation from age, light and lookalikes.

A Pacific seabird field guide for rare California appearances, plunge-diving behavior and responsible coastal photography.

A marsh-level guide to a secretive orange-faced sparrow, its migration windows and the limits of field identification.

Listen after dark for the world’s smallest owl, then protect the cavities and desert woodland it depends on.

Find North America’s largest buteo across open western country and separate light and dark birds from other broad-winged hawks.

A compact woodland buteo whose immense migration flights reward attention to wind, ridges and silhouette.

Read proportions, flight style and tail shape to identify a small woodland hawk without relying on apparent size alone.

A year-round western hummingbird with explosive display dives, iridescent color and a rapidly changing range.

A tiny tropical flycatcher of shaded forest understory, best located by voice and confirmed by its broad flat bill.

A canopy tanager whose blunt bill, vocal behavior and bee-hunting tactics are more useful than waiting for perfect red.

Find and photograph North American birds.

Sharp flight photographs begin before autofocus: with wind, light, background and a predictable place for the bird to enter the frame.

Field skills, settings and craft.

Taxonomy, seasonal planning and fieldcraft from the editorial desk.

Read water, season and structure before color: 39 independently researched Odonata guides, including regional species and legacy-recovery pages whose ranges lie elsewhere.

Identify a pale violet desert-stream dancer whose verified U.S. range reaches Arizona and Texas—but not New Mexico on the 2024 checklist.

Read the dark abdominal pattern of a widespread western bluet found at desert ponds, reservoirs and quieter stream margins.

Separate a blue-violet stream dancer of western rivers by its full thoracic pattern, abdominal markings and terminal structures.

Find a compact, strongly contrasting damselfly at the northern edge of a mostly Mexican and Central American distribution.

Use face color, green thoracic stripes and the male's blue abdominal tip to sort a variable western forktail.

Recognize a dark river dancer by narrow blue abdominal rings and learn where to watch its repeat patrols beside current.

A cool-water bluet whose male often requires an appendage view to separate from Northern Bluet in western mountain wetlands.

A California-centered stream dancer of clear foothill creeks, identified from combined thoracic and terminal-abdomen characters.

A minute yellow-orange forktail of shallow vegetated water, with a range spanning the Americas and Atlantic islands.

Locate a red lowland damselfly inside dense vegetation at warm ponds, marsh channels and slow desert water.

Confirm a dark-bodied bluet by the paired pale thoracic stripes that give this pond and reservoir species its name.

A dark river dancer whose mature male changes dramatically from a paler teneral insect to a charcoal adult.

An eastern and central pond forktail reaching New Mexico at its southwestern limit, with age-variable females and a blue-tipped male.

A California endemic of spring runs and small streams, named for a bright thoracic mark that resembles punctuation.

One of North America's most widespread bluets, adaptable to ponds, reservoirs, canals and other still or slow water.

A warm-range stream dancer whose mature male combines conspicuous red eyes with a wine-toned thorax and dark metallic body.

A northern bog-pond dragonfly absent from the Southwest, retained here solely to recover a useful legacy destination.

A northern marsh bluet best separated from Marsh Bluet through a sharp lateral view of the male terminal appendages.

An orange-and-black banded dragonfly that balances like a flag on tall grasses beside warm still water.

A pale, heavily pruinose stream dancer of western and southern flowing water, including isolated northern populations.

A pale violet dancer ranging from California, Utah and Texas into northern Mexico, associated with rocky streams and rivers.

A cool-region bluet of sedge marshes and vegetated ponds, with males structurally close to Hagen's Bluet.

A southwestern forktail of warm vegetated wetlands, separated from regional Ischnura by face, thorax and abdominal-tip pattern.

A western cool-water bluet whose male is often indistinguishable from Boreal Bluet without a close appendage view.

A common western forktail of ponds, marshes and slow streams, with females that change markedly in color as they mature.

A richly patterned spring-and-stream damselfly whose supported U.S. range is limited to Arizona and Texas.

An interior-western forktail of prairie ponds and shallow marshes, with a forked male abdominal tip and age-variable females.

A robust river dancer whose mature male becomes extensively coated in pale blue-gray pruinescence.

A southern forktail with multiple female color forms, found from warm freshwater and lagoons into brackish coastal margins.

A highly localized Bay Area forktail dependent on year-round freshwater seeps and streams, with a March–November adult cycle documented by NPS.

A minute metallic-green damselfly that hides inside dense sedge beds at northern marshes, bogs and pond edges.

A Mexican mountain-stream dancer reaching Arizona at its northern limit, requiring strong documentation for any U.S. record.

A dark-winged rubyspot of southern and eastern rivers whose old Arizona records are considered probably incorrect.

A nearly black canyon-stream dancer ranging from Oregon and Colorado into Mexico, best revealed where shade meets sun.

An Arizona–New Mexico stream dancer whose male paraprocts carry the long spine-like extension named in English.

A spring-associated dancer now treated as Argia funebris, replacing the older Argia plana name used in legacy references.

A regional Arizona–New Mexico dancer of rocky creeks and spring-fed streams, with a much smaller range than widespread blue Argia.

A western bluet of cattail and bulrush marshes, best confirmed from abdominal pattern and male terminal appendages.

A tiny, stocky red-orange damselfly of shallow seeps and saturated meadow edges across the interior West.

A host-plant-centered guide to the small crambid moth whose larvae feed on bougainvillea and related plants.

Identify and photograph a widespread desert rattlesnake from a safe distance while giving it an unobstructed escape route.

Field guides for dragonflies, damselflies and other wildlife.

A field-use framework for choosing equipment.

Our mission and editorial standards.