Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

01/06/10, 02/12/10

Although it's called a museum, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is more of a combination of a zoo and botanical gardens with a little bit of a natural history museum thrown in. It has more than 300 animal species and 1200 kinds of plants that are native to the Sonoran Desert region.

I made two trips to the museum. Unfortunately, due to the time of year and the sunny days I visited, the animals were a little scarce. Some animals were hibernating and others were napping in the shade, often out of view. But there were a few cooperative animals around.

The highlight of my visits were Raptor Free Flight Shows. They had several species of raptors in the shows. But, in my opinion, the stars were a group of Harris' Hawks. Harris' Hawks are unique in that they are the only raptors that hunt in groups. It was really cool watching them fly around between various perches and their trainers. Many times, their flight path would take them just feet over the crowd. There were several times when I could've reached up and touched a hawk as it flew over me. The last photo shows one of these occasions at a point where the hawk was only 5-6 feet in front and 2-3 feet over my head.

Costa's Hummingbird
Steve Winker