The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was a great place to spend our day off. The park is made up of various buildings housing live desert reptiles, birds, animals and fish, each in a wonderful representation of its natural habitat. Interconnecting trails featured desert plants and trees, all labelled.

At least six different varieties of hummingbirds darted and swooped amongst the bushes in the hummingbird enclosure. Impossible to capture their beauty with a mere Iphone camera.

I'll just show you the plants that caught my attention, and a couple of animals that caught my attention.

Rufus Hummingbird.






This little lizard was about three inches long, and posed obligingly for me.

The nest in the Cholla cactus is probably a Cactus Wren's.

This is a Fairy Duster, or False Mesquite.  It's one of the few plants that blooms in the winter on desert mountain slopes.

Teddy Bear Cholla. 

A clearer picture .  Don't cuddle this teddy bear, though!

The raptor show this year featured this family of Harrises Hawk. They put on quite a show, swooping low over our heads, guided by little bits of meat a park volunteer would put on various landing points, like dead trees .

 A Mountain Goat clings precariously to this steep slope.  We held our breath as he began his descent, but he made it!

The cacti below looked soft and fuzzy, but again, don't touch it!

I don't know the name of these flowers, but they made a splash of colour against the brown-green desert.

Actually, the desert appeared much greener than we've seen before because of recent rain.

One of the many varieties of Prickly Pear.