Winter Travels 2019--Part 15: Sonoran Desert Museum

Tuesday we thought we’d get some information on the Sonoran Desert Museum (which we have visited every time we’ve come to Tucson) and then go on to the Saguaro National Park-West for the middle of the day, and return to the Museum for what we thought was an evening light display. When Marv dropped me to get program times, etc. I found out that they do no have a light display and they close at 5:00. We decided to just stay at the Museum for the day. We joined a short interpretive walk through the Mountain Woodland and Desert Grassland areas, went to a lecture in the Warden Oasis Theater on poisonous Rattle Snakes and Gila Monster complete with live specimens, had lunch at Ocotillo Café, made the Raptor Flight show at 2:00 which included only their family of Harris Hawks because the winds were too high for other Raptors, and managed to walk the Desert Loop Trail, Cat Canyon, and Riparian Corridor before ending at the Hummingbird Aviary. Marv got some wonderful shots of the animals! As we were leaving, we were shocked and saddened to find out that Bob Hubbard had died that afternoon from complications of Parkinson’s Disease. We are so sorry to be gone at this terrible time for JoAnn and lose such a close, important friend to our family. It was quite a day of ups and downs, spoiled again at the end by listening to the Spartans lose their third straight basketball game, this time to lowly Illinois, which should have been an easy win. ☹

This Mountain Lion, like most of the animals at the museum
was a rescue. It has no mate because they are solitary animals
who don't want to live with other Mountain Lions.

Black Bear
The animals were very active, possibly because of the unusually cool temps.

Mexican Grey Wolf--highly endangered

Prairie Dog

Gila Monster

High-bred Diamondback/Black tail  Rattle snake

Harris Hawk

Harris Hawk in flight. 

Coyote

Bobcat

I LOVED the Boojum Tree. The museum is putting in a bigger
display of these Dr. Seuss-like trees.

Three Big Horn Sheep

He's clearly the King of the Mountain!

Rufous Hummingbird

Broad billed?

Female Anna's or Costa's?

We thought this board would be helpful for identifying the hummingbirds.
Then we realized that there were 3 different boards. We really don't have a
good idea of what most of them were! But we loved seeing them up close.

Black chinned, maybe?

Organ Pipe Cactus