Sonoran Desert Museum

Fair warning, this post has a lot of photos. I wasn’t kidding when I said I took 862 photos on Monday. I somehow whittled it down to 19 for this post. I could have added so many more.

The Sonoran desert museum was awesome. If you are ever in the Tucson area, Go. It was part botanical garden, part zoo, and part museum. We wanted more than anything to see the raptor free flight show. We got to the museum early Monday morning. The first raptor show was at 10am, so we saw some things, then made our way there. The birds fly free over your head, and land on snags not far from where we were all lined up. I had an owl fly so close my to my head, he ruffled my hair.

The morning show had ravens, the great horned owl, a falcon, and a small hawk. The birds are in free flight, and could leave if they wanted to. But, they are well fed, housed, and have no worries. So why leave.

We then saw lizards, snakes, coyotes, javelina, and all kinds of cactus. We went home at lunch time, spent time with the dogs, and did the second half of the museum that afternoon. There is a hummingbird aviary, which was fun. Little hummers flying all around, and some were on nests. The regular bird aviary was great too. Birds just hanging out as you walk around among the trees and plants. This stellars jay kept buzzing our heads.

Then we got to watch him have a bath. He was really into that.

This little yellow guy was pretty.

There was a 2pm raptor show, so of course we saw it too. This time they had a barn owl, and 4 Harris’s hawks.

I mentioned the Harris’s hawks before. They are the ones that hunt in a pack. We saw a group in the wild a week or so ago.

After all the bird stuff, we headed back to an area we had been at that morning. There are 2 Mexican gray wolves, a mountain lion, and some other assorted small animals. The wolves were restless, I think they knew it was dinner time.

We wanted to see if the mountain lion was more visible then he was earlier. This guy knows how to play the camera.

Even though he was in a zoo environment, I couldn’t help admire how beautiful he was.

Then he got restless too, and started running around. I have always thought I wanted to see a mountain lion in the wild. Now, I don’t know, this guy was running FAST.

 

That stare, what a look they have.

It was a fabulous day, and I would go back in heart beat.

Today we leave for Carefree. Our art show starts tomorrow at noon and goes through Sunday at 5. The Carefree Fine art and fine chocolate festival. Sounds perfect for Valentines weekend, doesn’t it? If you are in the Arizona area, we would love to see you.