We Do the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

We arrived at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum right when they opened at 8:30 this morning. We decided to buy a membership for $50.00 so we can go in and out whenever we want to. The day was rather cloudy but we did have a sunny break or two this morning. There was a tour starting just as we got through all the paperwork so we went on a tour with Laurel, one of the docents. She told us what a lot of the cactus, plants and trees were and there were exhibits along the way with other docents explaining rocks and minerals, dinosaurs and the like.

A mountain lion was nice enough to come right in front of the glass so we could get a photo of him and the ocelot slept wedged in the rocks waiting for his photo to be taken too. There were bears, deer, wolves and lots of others that we have to go back to see.

And the mountain lion in his natural habitat.

The ocelot in his rock.
We ended up at the Raptor Free Flight at 10:30 a.m. They had a roadrunner (pictured below), a raven, a barn owl (pictured below) and a Ferruginous Hawk.

The barn owl in flight.A photo stop at the aviary and the hummingbirds was next with photos of some of them too. As I've said before my camera doesn't do well on small birds and animals so some of them are kind of fuzzy after cropping.

The female cardinal.
The cactus wren.
This is a broad billed hummingbird. He's really a beauty! His chest is a blue/turquoise color with a red beak.
I finally saw an organ pipe cactus (photo below) or two as well as all sorts of other varities including, of course, the saguaro.


I also saw this cactus that appears to have fur on top. I couldn't see anywhere what kind it is and all I have been able to find on the internet is that it's a Mexican Cactus.

This is desert mistletoe.
And an agave plant. Doesn't it look like a really big asparagus?


At the Ironwood Terrace Restaurant we had a pretty good hamburger then walked around a bit more before deciding to call it a day.

Our front step popped a rivet the other day so we stopped at a Home Depot to get a bolt, some nuts and washers to replace the rivet so Gordon looked after that when we got home.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is an amazing place. I'm glad we got the membership. I think we'll be spending quite a bit of time there over the next month. Who knows, maybe we'll stay longer!