Mourning Dove
A small-headed dove writes its identity in motion: pointed tail, white tail corners, black wing spots, explosive takeoff, and a high mechanical whistle quite separate from its mournful voice.
Sonora, Mexico: places and wildlife
Browse the published Explore collection for Sonora, Mexico. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Wild Turkey
Missouri’s restored woodland giant scratches for mast by day, flies to a high tree roost at dusk, and turns spring clearings into a careful performance of gobble, strut, fan, and low drumming.
Canada Goose
The black-necked goose behind migrating V formations, urban grazers, family processions, and loud seasonal skies.
Great Blue Heron
A long-legged ambush hunter that can look prehistoric at close range and surprisingly compact when folded in flight.
Red-tailed Hawk
A broad-winged raptor commonly seen on poles, thermals, and highway trees, yet extraordinarily variable in plumage.
Bald Eagle
A fish-eating sea eagle whose recovery turned a once-imperiled national emblem back into a familiar sight over major waters.
Coyote
A slender, intelligent canid equally capable of living in prairie, desert, farm country, forest edge, and major cities.
Striped Skunk
A mostly nocturnal digger that advertises powerful chemical defense with bold black-and-white fur and patient warnings.
American Beaver
A broad-tailed rodent that fells trees, stores branches, builds dams, and creates habitat used by entire freshwater communities.
Bobcat
Missouri’s statewide wild cat often appears first as a nearly straight track line through mud, then as long hind legs, cheek ruffs, and a short tail slipping between brush and clearing.
North American Bullfrog
Missouri’s largest frog broadcasts a deep jug-o-rum from permanent water, where one missing pair of back folds separates it from the smaller Green Frog.
Western Meadowlark
Kansas’s flute-voiced grassland emblem is often identified by song before its yellow breast ever comes into view.
Ornate Box Turtle
Kansas’s state reptile crosses prairie with a yellow-starred shell and a durable mental map—one reason moving it to “better habitat” can do lasting harm.
Barred Tiger Salamander
A boldly marked prairie amphibian that spends most of its life hidden beneath Kansas soil.
Black-tailed Prairie Dog
A talkative burrowing rodent whose clipped lawns and tunnel systems reorganize an entire patch of prairie.
American Kestrel
North America’s smallest falcon hunts Kansas roadsides from wires, poles, and wind-held hovering flight.
Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl stands in daylight beside a prairie-dog mound, using another mammal’s excavation as nest, refuge, and lookout.
American Badger
Kansas’s broadest weasel reads the prairie from below, opening prey burrows with long foreclaws and leaving fans of soil that may outlast the animal’s brief nocturnal appearance.
Black-capped Vireo
A small migratory songbird depends on a shifting mosaic of low shrubs and openings maintained by disturbance, browsing, and careful land management.
Mountain Plover
Look first for sandy plover with a white forehead and thin black forecrown in breeding plumage, then confirm it in shortgrass prairie, prairie-dog colonies, and sparsely vegetated fields. Those two clues make Mountain Plover much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Hairstreak
Look first for purple wings with broad dark margins and orange spots near the hindwing tails, then confirm it in gambel oak woodland and scrub in colorado and the four corners region. Those two clues make Colorado Hairstreak much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
California Gull
Utah’s state bird is an inland gull whose vast Great Salt Lake gatherings connect nesting islands, farm fields, wetlands, and migration routes.
American White Pelican
One of North America’s largest birds nests on remote Great Salt Lake islands and travels astonishing distances to feed in freshwater wetlands.
Golden Eagle
Utah’s state bird of prey is a powerful open-country eagle most often discovered as a dark, steady shape circling over cliffs and basins.
Greater Roadrunner
New Mexico’s state bird is a large ground-dwelling cuckoo: a fast, territorial hunter that rudders with its tail, flashes white wing patches, warms dark skin in the morning sun, and sounds nothing like a cartoon beep.
New Mexico Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
This small, beautifully marked rattlesnake survives in isolated pine-oak sky islands at New Mexico’s southwestern edge and across the nearby Mexican border.
New Mexico Locust
This small native tree can turn burned mountain slopes pink with pea-like flowers, then stabilize soil through vigorous root sprouting and nitrogen-fixing partnerships.
Cactus Wren
Arizona’s brash desert wren advertises itself from cholla with bold white brows, spotted plumage, and a mechanical chugging song.
Abert’s Towhee
A secretive lower-desert towhee scratches beneath mesquite, revealing a black face, warm undertail, and brief accelerating song.
Arizona Gray Squirrel
A broad pale-edged tail and warm reddish back distinguish this large squirrel of Arizona’s oak-lined mountain canyons.
Arizona Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
Arizona’s small mountain rattlesnake favors cool, rocky pine-oak canyons and shows pale facial stripes across an upturned snout.
Gila Topminnow
This tiny livebearing fish persists in warm desert springs and cienegas where introduced mosquitofish, drought, and altered flows threaten recovery.
Two-tailed Swallowtail
Arizona’s enormous yellow state butterfly patrols canyon streams and gardens, flashing black tiger stripes and two tails on each hindwing.
Arizona Giant Skipper
A brief monsoon-season flight reveals this robust agave specialist, whose hidden larvae spend most of their lives inside host plants.
Saguaro
The Sonoran Desert’s towering column stores rain in pleated stems, shelters cavity nesters, and feeds wildlife with crown flowers and red fruit.
Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus
A low blue-green barrel armed with heavy curved spines hides among southern Arizona limestone and blooms pink after warm-season rain.
Blue Palo Verde
Arizona’s state tree sheds tiny leaves during drought, photosynthesizes through blue-green bark, and erupts in pollinator-rich yellow spring bloom.
Arizona Sycamore
Mottled white trunks illuminate rocky canyon streams where this broad-crowned southwestern tree provides shade, cavities, and riparian structure.
Arizona Cypress
Blue-gray scale foliage, fibrous bark, and persistent round cones identify this fire-adapted conifer of Arizona’s rocky mountain canyons.
Desert Bighorn Sheep
Nevada’s state mammal turns steep desert rock into refuge, using gripping hooves while tracking sparse forage, shade, and water across isolated ranges.
Mountain Bluebird
Idaho’s state bird flashes an almost unbroken blue across open mountain and sage country, often hovering briefly before dropping onto ground prey.
Common Loon
Minnesota’s state bird is a superb underwater hunter whose haunting calls carry across northern lakes—but whose nest can fail after one careless wake.