away on the west side of Tuscon, combination zoo,
botanical garden and nature center. At the front gate
was a volunteer holding a kestrel. Two Harris' hawks,
put on a show of hunting and low flying directed by
their trainers. There were a number of people with
binos and walkie-talkies out on the fringes of the
demonstration area watching for owls and eagles that
might attack the tame hawks while they were putting on
their show. I walked through one aviary full of
hummingbirds and another of desert birds. Many of the
hummys were sitting on eggs or feeding young. The
nests were about the size of an espresso cup. There
were hundreds of species of desert plants, a small zoo
of desert cats and an art museum full of a recent
competition of paintings of flowers; the first prize
was $25,000.
This evening I had dinner with Margaret O'Neil-Frater
and her friend Ally at a great Peruvian restaurant.
Margaret and I competed about who liked Tucson more.
She is helping with some animal research on a farm
that milks 3500 cows.
I just remembered a country and western song that I
heard between innings at one of the ball parks. A
male singer sang to his girlfriend about their taking
a walk in the mountains, seeing the sunset, etc. And
the verse ended, "Then I'd like to take you home and
check you for ticks." I am not making this up.
I was planning on packing up tomorrow and heading
north. Then I looked at temps in Flagstaff, the Grand
Canyon and Bryce: in the low 20's at night and 40's
during the day. I'm rethinking my plans.
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1 comment:
Hi Jordan,
I'm reading back through more than two weeks of
blogs. Do you see comments that are this dated?
Jay described something very similar to the Harris
hawk event - same place?
David
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