The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

This is an indoor/outdoor museum (but mostly outdoor).  It is about 10 miles west of downtown Tucson.  It is a zoo, natural history museum and a botanical garden.  It is 21 acres with 2 miles of trails, so you don't have to go far to see a lot.  Much of the flora you have already seen in previous posts, plus there will be a few new ones in future blogs, so I have not included much in this post.  In addition to the animals in the photos below, they had what many zoos have: spiders, snakes, lizards, beavers and otters (I tried to get photos of them but they wouldn't hold still !!) and birds.  We did see a coyote, but he wouldn't get up from his nap so I could get a photo.

A view of the country side on the way.

Some of the trails within the museum.

Andrea loved the bright colors !

We didn't see any, but these mock ears are thatof a Townsend bat.  They have large ears in proportion to their body (ears are about 1 1/2"  long). To get an idea of how large, they had these  'ears' made based on the proportion for humans.  I had to include a photo of the 3 of us.



Lunch at the Ocotilla Cafe.

One of the few times the sun came out.

Wolf.

Mountain Lion.

Grey Fox.

Ocelot.

This bobcat was about 28" long and weighed about 24 lbs.  Pound for pound, the bobcat is the strongest of all cats; it  can bring down prey 7 timesits weight. One of the keepers just happened to be feeding them (there were 2 bobcats in the enclosure) and gave us that fact.

Javalina.  These look like a type of pig, but are not.  They are really a peccary (I'm sure that helps !).  Let's just suffice to say they are not pigs. 

Where's the Western Screech Owl ?  No cheating and looking at the next photo !!

Isn't that great camouflage ?

Big Horn Sheep.

Gamble's Quail.

Everybody's favorite. I couldn't believe it sat long enough for a good photo.

A baby hummingbird.

Caught one in flight.  Know how many photos I had of the ground and blurry trees before I got this ?!!