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Eric Moore

Stories by Eric

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Last Wednesday, a customer was sharing with me her excitement about having a pair of cardinals in her yard. At home the next day, I was sitting in the den reading when I heard the unmistakable sound of a cardinal singing.

By Eric Moore March 27, 2024
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I spent most of last week down in Tubac participating in the HawkWatch event. It was a very enjoyable experience — kind of like a working vacation. Watching birds and selling Swarovski optical products is not a bad gig!

By Eric Moore March 20, 2024
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I have been down in Tubac, Arizona this past week in the capacity of a Swarovski Optik vendor at the annual Tubac Hawk Watch event. The hawk watch is held at the Ronald R. Morriss County Park, directly adjacent to the Santa Cruz River.

By Eric Moore March 13, 2024
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Our new store location off of Black Drive has a beautiful conference room that we are using to host a variety of free workshops and presentations. This past week I taught a class on shorebird identification.

By Eric Moore March 6, 2024
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In my weekly column last Thursday, I mentioned how we’ve been receiving reports from customers of newly arrived hummingbirds. The day after my column ran in the paper, I led a store sponsored bird walk to Willow Lake, and we saw five or six Anna’s hummingbirds in the wild.

By Eric Moore February 28, 2024
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While the calendar shows it is only February, over the last week we have received several reports of a variety of different hummingbird species showing up in the Prescott area. Apparently, hummingbirds don’t look at calendars.

By Eric Moore February 21, 2024
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On Feb. 23, 1994, the month of February was proclaimed as National Bird-Feeding Month by Congressman John Porter when he read a resolution into the Congressional Record.

By Eric Moore February 14, 2024
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This past week I received an email newsletter from the National Audubon Society titled, “When it’s okay (or not) to feed birds.” Feeding wild birds, properly, can provide a benefit to many bird species.

By Eric Moore February 7, 2024
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This past week marked the 20th anniversary of my writing this weekly column for The Daily Courier. In honor of this event, I thought it would be fun to re-run my very first column.

By Eric Moore January 31, 2024
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Many people set aside some time at the beginning of each New Year to be reflective and perhaps even write down a list of specific goals. Maybe you have a bucket list of new things you would like to do in the coming year.

By Eric Moore January 24, 2024
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This past week, I attended the first birding and nature festival of 2024 in Arizona — the Wings over Willcox Festival. I drove down on Thursday, and the weather was wild, just like it was here last Thursday. It even snowed in Willcox!

By Eric Moore January 17, 2024
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This past week has been a cold one! Two mornings in a row, our home weather station read 12 degrees when I got up! I am not a big fan of cold weather; in fact, I’m not even a little fan.

By Eric Moore January 10, 2024
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Happy New Year! I am looking forward, with great anticipation, to new birding adventures in 2024. Guess what I did on January 1st?

By Eric Moore January 3, 2024
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As another year comes to a close, I feel extremely grateful for the blessings that have been showered down upon our business. There have been a lot of challenges, but there have also been tremendous blessings.

By Eric Moore December 27, 2023
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I was in Granite Basin earlier this week, and boy was I surprised by the avian find I stumbled across! I heard a noise ahead of me, and when I came through a narrow spot in the brush...

By Eric Moore December 20, 2023
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I was in Granite Basin this past week, and was surprised to see a greater roadrunner there. The range for roadrunners is extensive.

By Eric Moore December 13, 2023
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Last week I led a store-sponsored bird walk to Granite Basin, which happens to be my assigned area each year for the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC). With the CBC right around the corner, it was really nice to spend some time scouting my area.

By Eric Moore December 6, 2023
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My trip to Corpus Christi, Texas last week was such a sweet experience.

By Eric Moore November 22, 2023
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For over fifteen years our store has been an authorized Swarovski dealer, selling binoculars, spotting scopes and tripods.

By Eric Moore November 15, 2023
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This past Friday I spent over two hours birding at Watson Lake and saw 55 species.

By Eric Moore November 8, 2023
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Our mild—even warm—fall weather has impacted backyard bird feeding activity.

By Eric Moore November 1, 2023
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I had several nice birding experiences this past week. On Wednesday, I participated in a Prescott Audubon Society Chapter sponsored bird walk to Watson Woods Riparian Preserve and the Peavine Trail. In a little over an hour of bird watching we saw forty different species!

By Eric Moore October 25, 2023
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When I was about twelve years old, I built my first bird blind for the purpose of doing wild bird photography. This, of course, was back in the days of film.

By Eric Moore October 18, 2023
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This month marks our 20th year in business, and later in the month we will be hosting a series of events to mark this special occasion. From our humble beginnings in a 575-square foot “garage”, in the back of Watters Garden Center, to our new location on Willow Creek Road, we’ve experienced a lot — and grown!

By Eric Moore October 11, 2023
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When I came home from work one day this past week, I walked into the garage and heard a faint bird call. Listening carefully, I quickly realized there was a bird somewhere inside the garage.

By Eric Moore October 4, 2023
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The month of September has resulted in some fantastic birding opportunities here in the Arizona Central Highlands. All kinds of birds have shown up — many unexpectedly.

By Eric Moore September 27, 2023
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I enjoyed my trip to Payson this past weekend for the annual meeting of the Arizona Field Ornithologists organization. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do any birding, as I was busy staffing my optics vendor booth!

By Eric Moore September 20, 2023
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About a year ago I signed up for a guided birding trip to Chihuahua, Mexico. I’ve birded in Mexico on several occasions, but never in Chihuahua.

By Eric Moore September 6, 2023
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Bird observations can be a sign of the changing seasons. Depending on what bird species you are seeing in your yard, you can know not only what time of year it is, but potentially even what month it is.

By Eric Moore August 30, 2023
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Several months ago, I had numerous conversations with customers about hummingbirds. Back in April, May, and June, one customer after another was lamenting that they didn’t have as many hummingbirds this year as they did last year.

By Eric Moore August 23, 2023
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I’ve received several reports of lazuli buntings at seed feeders this week. Lazuli buntings are seen more frequently in the spring as they make their way north during migration.

By Eric Moore August 16, 2023
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I was down in Sierra Vista for five days last week attending the Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival. Each day, before and after the vendor booth hours, my store manager, Ryan, and I were out birdwatching.

By Eric Moore August 9, 2023
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I am in Sierra Vista right now, attending the Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival. While attending festivals is a lot of work, it is also kind of a working vacation.

By Eric Moore August 2, 2023
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As mentioned in my column last week, this week is the 9th Annual Hummingbird Festival at the Performing Arts Center in Sedona, at the Sedona Red Rock High School. We will be attending as a vendor with a wide assortment of hummingbird products.

By Eric Moore July 26, 2023
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Last week I led a store-sponsored bird walk to the Cottonwood Peninsula on the west side of Willow Lake. We had a wonderful bird walk and saw a good variety of birds including a great horned owl, swallows, Bullock’s oriole, summer tanager, and more

By Eric Moore July 19, 2023
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As a follow up to last week’s column, we had a wonderful road trip. We spent time in Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Colorado, before returning to Prescott, driving over 3,200 miles.

By Eric Moore July 12, 2023
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In 2010, my wife and I drove with our two youngest children to South Dakota so our adoptive daughter could visit her biological mother. As you might imagine, I did quite a bit of birding on that trip.

By Eric Moore July 5, 2023
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I have noticed a variety of baby birds in my yard this past week, including white-breasted nuthatch, mountain chickadee, American robin and Gambel’s quail. Based on the size of the babies, I believe we have three distinct quail families visiting our yard.

By Eric Moore June 28, 2023
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fielding the same question over and over again here at The Lookout, “Where are all of the birds?”

By Eric Moore June 21, 2023
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I have a dear friend who recently shared how he was at species number 499 on his life list and he wanted the Elegant Trogon to be species number 500.

By Eric Moore June 14, 2023
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In January I rolled out the Jay’s Bird Barn 2023 Birding Challenge to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of our business. Since it is now June, I thought it would be a good idea to do an update on the Birding Challenge.

By Eric Moore June 7, 2023
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I mentioned in my column last Thursday to be on the lookout for baby quail. The day after my column ran in the paper, I had three people reach out to me reporting baby quail sightings, and I’ve had several more reports since then.

By Eric Moore May 31, 2023
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This past week I had the opportunity to participate in the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding and Nature Festival in Cortez, Colorado.

By Eric Moore May 24, 2023
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I led a guided bird walk to the Watson Woods Riparian Preserve, including the Peavine Trail and the southeastern edge of Watson Lake. Our three-hour bird walk was super productive — we saw 53 species!

By Eric Moore May 17, 2023
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This past week I led a private guided bird walk for the Natural History Institute. Our walk took in part of the Watson Woods Riparian Preserve, the Peavine Trail, and Watson Lake. We had a wonderful morning, observing forty-four species, and hearing many more that we didn’t see.

By Eric Moore May 10, 2023
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This past week I attended the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona. I participated as a vendor, selling binoculars and spotting scopes, as a guide, and as a speaker.

By Eric Moore May 3, 2023
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In spring, the one habitat where songbird migration is most easily detected is in our riparian areas. A simple definition of the word riparian means “stream side habitat.” In Prescott, this includes areas such as Watson Woods.

By Eric Moore April 19, 2023
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My wife and I made a quick trip back to Oklahoma over the Easter weekend to visit family. Our trip was just a little over 48 hours, but we packed a lot of activities into Saturday and Sunday.

By Eric Moore April 12, 2023
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While bird migration has been underway for several weeks, there is a significant uptick in migration activity during the month of April. Longer, warmer days, and more abundant food sources for migratory birds.

By Eric Moore April 5, 2023
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This past weekend I had the opportunity to walk the Peavine Trail a couple of times. With migration underway, it is interesting to see what is still at Watson Lake in terms of water fowl.

By Eric Moore March 29, 2023

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