Jalisco’s 21-year-old Saul “Canelo” Alvarez retained his WBC Light MiddleWeight Championship title, Saturday, May 5, defeating six-time world champion Shane Mosley. Mosley, at 40, had just begun to show the wear-and-tear of a long, successful career in his last three fights. Yet many pundits, especially in Mexico, had suggested Canelo would have trouble with Mosley’s well-known hard punching and ring savvy.

Listen! What do you hear? It might be birdsong, kids playing on the street, roosters crowing or the ice cream vendor.

A 17-minute drive north of Guadalajara brings you to a veritable Forest of Giants: monster rocks covering a steep hillside which rises high above the placid village of Río Blanco. The place was long ago given the name El Diente in honor of one particular tooth-shaped rock especially beloved by the boulder and mountain climbers who have been coming to Cerro El Diente for decades to hone their skills.

For months I watched the woodpeckers hollow out the telephone pole in front of my house to build their new home. The problem was that the hole they were working on was their fourth attempt at nest making and I wondered just how many holes that pole could take before it snapped. I wondered if male woodpeckers face the same problems as male weaver birds (Ploceidae), which have to “try, try again” until their lady loves say, “Yes, this is perfect for my nest.”