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For more than 20 years, bird lovers have celebrated the onset of the summer breeding season at the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival. This year’s event takes place the last weekend in April and is centered at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.
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The most productive aquifer in northern Arizona is named after its main water-bearing rock unit — the Coconino Sandstone. The Coconino Aquifer underlies 27,000 square miles west of Flagstaff and into New Mexico and southern Utah.
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The shrinking shoreline of Lake Powell has revealed a wonder: an extraordinary collection of fossil bones from the Early Jurassic period that offers a glimpse into the life of a now-extinct creature called a tritylodontid.
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When you think of our Nation’s oldest settlements, stories of Plymouth Rock, Jamestown or Albany may come to mind. Yet America’s oldest towns are actually right here on the Colorado Plateau — Oraibi in Arizona and Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico.
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The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque hosts a unique holiday tradition this time of year. It’s the Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest, an annual — and edible — celebration of Pueblo architecture.
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The Hopi Mesas in Northeastern Arizona rise more than 600 feet above the surrounding landscape. They form the southern edge of Black Mesa, a large geologic uplift that peaks at more than 8,000 feet above sea level.
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More than 260 bird species in North and South America will be getting new common names. On the docket for revision are all English eponymous bird names, that is, any bird named after a person.
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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the federal Endangered Species Act. The landmark conservation law lists more than 1,600 animals and plants as threatened or endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sets plans to recover those species and their habitats.
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You’ve likely heard of the Venus fly trap, a subtropical botanical carnivore that traps flies in its leafy jaws! But the Grand Canyon has its very own insect entrapping plant, too.
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A hundred years ago, before big dams constrained the Colorado River, boating was exciting and far less predictable. The Birdseye Expedition of 1923 experienced such excitement at Lava Falls — the monstrous class 10 rapid in Grand Canyon.
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A vast amount of research shows how humans have changed the ecosystems of the Southwest, but these long-term changes can be difficult to comprehend. Images can be a powerful way to fill this visual deficit between past and present.
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Northern Arizona is known for its roaming wildlife and the world’s largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest. This rugged, contrasting landscape beckons to species that need space to meander, yet many find themselves barricaded by the state’s cross-cutting interstates.