Another week has gone by and the weather has improved especially when compared to home. We finally had a night that didn't go below freezing, probably the first since November, and the last several days have been in the 80s with at least a week more of the same. As much as I've grumbled about our below freezing mornings, it sure beats -5°. Warm thoughts to all.
The last weekend was a bit broken up. According to our schedule, we have Saturday through Tuesday off. But it seems like this doesn't happen frequently enough and this past week was another example. Dan has been away this week, so the visitor center has been short staffed and we've filled in the gaps. Sunday we sat in at the visitor center for Craig and Evelyn as Evelyn was away. We also staffed the visitor center on Thursday since Chuck and Betty were doing a school presentation. Visitor center duty is okay but a little boring. Ellen tends to use her time cutting up cardboard floors for the quails and I spend what time I have on my computer. With the nicer weather, however, more people have been visiting the refuge which is quite nice.
We went to Tucson twice, probably once more that we would prefer. After checking on the quail in the flight pens on Monday, we made our weekly shopping trip, but on Tuesday we finally made the time to visit the Desert Museum. We'd been told that this was a must-see, so we did. The museum is mostly outdoors and and is a cross between a natural history museum of the Sonoran Desert and its surrounding ecosystems and a zoo.
They have trails with exhibits of various desert plants and animals and representative vegetation areas of the various non-desert environments such as the grasslands and mountainous oak and juniper forests (these are created environments using plantings and irrigation, as the museum is in the same desert as the adjacent Saguaro National Park). They also have animal exhibits of the creatures of the desert and its surroundings. Some enclosures seem quite large such as those with javelina, deer and coyote (all separate, of course), but those with some of the large predators like mountain lion and black bear seemed rather small.
The museum also had mining and mineral collections, reptile and snake exhibits (who knew there were so many local species of rattlesnake), a small aquarium (yes, there are lakes and streams with native fish and mammals) and several walk-in aviaries with one devoted to hummingbirds. They would zip back and forth right in front of you and not hesitate to alight on a branch only inches away.
The biggest disappointment was the crowds. It was only a Tuesday, but it was packed. It is evidently the busy time of the year. All of the exhibits were very crowded. The highlight was the Raptor Free-flight demonstrations. There were two, one in the morning and one in mid-afternoon, and we attended each. They have a collection of raptors that are well-enough trained that they are allowed to fly free. Sometimes they don't follow the script and go off and do their own thing, but the ones they had this day all returned to their handlers eventually. We got to see close-up views of a pair of Chihuahuan Ravens, a Prairie Falcon, a Great Horned Owl, a Barn Owl, a Gray Hawk and a family of four Harris's Hawks. Quite wonderful, indeed.
We left fairly early as it was a very warm day, one of the first days we have had in the 80s.
We did our hydrology measurements at Arivaca Cienega on Wednesday this week. We were showing Connor and Jessica, two University of Arizona students who are volunteering twice a week (for credit), how to do the measurements. They may back up Rob and Reta to continue the project after we have gone.
On Friday, it was back to the quail facility to help care for the quail. We do mostly general care tasks making sure the quail have enough food and water and keeping their rooms clean. We assist Paula with the care and with any other task she needs doing. Next Monday, we will be doing the general care on our own. Paula has Mondays and Tuesdays off and normally one of the biologists, Dan or Ann does the general care that day, Dan's still away next Monday, so we were asked to fill-in. Now that Emily is gone, we are the only volunteers who will work at the quail facility.
Saturday was another Brown Canyon hike. It is supposed to be an off day, but there was a large group and hiking in Brown Canyon is always a treat ... it was a nice day, too. There were 18 people on this hike. Craig led much of it and Ellen and I did some of the leading. We have a new local volunteer, Bill, who also came along to assist and learn about the canyon. It was his first day volunteering.
We had 14 visitors on the hike, this is two more than normally allowed, so it made for a rather unwieldy group. Sometimes it felt like herding cats, but they all seemed to enjoy the hike. About half the hikers were pretty serious birders. Two were from Massachusetts and are new members of our local bird club, South Shore Bird Club. We hadn't met before, but they have recently moved to Dartmouth and joined the club.
Since it was such a large group, I don't think the birders were able to concentrate on birding as much as they would have liked, but we did provide them with a covey of Montezuma Quail on the road into the canyon to start the trip and a sighting of a Golden Eagle near the top of the canyon (we don't know if it was "our" eagle). After the end of the hike, we and Craig came to the conclusion that if we have enough volunteers, as we did today, it would be desirable to split into two groups so that the birders could move along at a slower pace in order to concentrate of that aspect of the hike, but it was a good group and we think a good time was had by all.
We made our weekly trip to Tucson today to do the grocery shopping. Since it is Valentine's Day, we overbought on the chocolates and picked up some excellent New Zealand lamb chops for dinner. We had an outdoor candle-lit dinner of grilled chops (rare, of course) with rice pilaf and greek salad for dinner, followed by crisp brownie cookies and heart-shaped chocolate caramels for dessert. We were joined by Rob and Reta, who are staying over tonight and brought over their dinner as well.
Tomorrow we manage the quail facility on our own, then two days off to spend time with our friends, Bob and Nancy, who will be visiting Tucson.
Photos
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