Arizona Birds

 Although we were only in Phoenix for a few hours each way, we managed to see quite a few fun birds down there as well. Gambel's Quail are very fun and distinctive with their bouffant forehead feathers, and are regionally separated from California Quail which they closely resemble. We were patient and quiet enough to see several of them scampering around near the concession stand in the Desert Botanical Garden.

 Also in the Botanical Garden, and quite possibly also interested in quail, was a mated pair of Great Horned Owls. We have seen them several times before, but they are always a treat, and one was even awake in the daylight as an added bonus. Great horned owls have a very powerful build and are often called the "tiger of the air," capable of eating pretty much anything they can catch.

 Since we were there in December, there were a lot of migratory waterfowl to be seen at a nearby pond, and we were delighted by a large number of Muscovy, ring-necked, and ruddy ducks, along with scaup, wigeon, moorhen, and shovelers.

Passing through Phoenix

 On our way to Costa Rica, we wound up with a flight change that left us with about 30 hours to cool our heels in Phoenix, Arizona on the way down and again on the way back. Rather than pout in an airport hotel, we were delighted to find that the area around the airport is both surprisingly walkable and full of neat places to go. Our first destination was the Pueblo Grande Museum, which had a nice series of displays and walking trails about the first nations people of the area.

 There was also the Desert Botanical Garden, which offered a wide range of cacti, butterfly gardens, other flowers/plants, and a nice place to have lunch. I was very taken with the size of the saguaro cacti and thoroughly enjoyed seeing them all over the place. My one regret was leaving my fisheye lens in the hotel for our all-day walk so that I didn't have the chance to get a nice spherical planet of these enormous plants.

Hole-in-the-Rock is a neat geological formation that you can walk up and climb through, so we managed to fit that in on our way back to the hotel. The Hohokam (resident first nations) had used this spot as a means of tracking the seasons, and a site at the Pueblo Grande Museum was where light shining through this hole would be observed during solstices or equinoxes.