On our recent visit to AZ, not only did we see the desert in bloom, but we saw several kinds of birds and animals.
There were cardinals in the trees, and lots of hummingbirds too. There were mourning doves and lots of quail drinking from a large, ceramic basin of water our friends strategically placed outside their family room window. I enjoyed seeing the quail and their pretty little head plumes. I tried several times to get a photo of the quail but it just didn’t happen. We spotted a roadrunner racing on the ground several times.
But the prize bird sighting was a Great-horned owl, and her two owlets. Their nest was in-between the arms of a tall, saguaro cactus. Ouch. Those cactus needles are prickly! We stopped to see the nest on our way to our friend’s house directly from the airport. We saw mama, and her two young ones the first time. Two days later we stopped by to check on the owlets and they had grown. My friend got an up-close photo of one of them with her special camera.
There were jack rabbits all over town; in the yards, on the golf courses, in the open spaces, at the watering bowl. I didn’t have my camera ready at the right moments so I didn’t get any photos of the cute bunnies with long ears.
We saw long-horn cattle roaming in the open, alongside the road to the trailhead for our desert hike.
But the prize animal sighting was bighorn sheep. On the drive through the mountains to Canyon Lake (where we had scheduled a boat ride in a beautiful reservoir) we spotted bighorn sheep.
We stopped to take photos and watch the beautiful creatures maneuver the rocky terrain. We counted 8. My friend had a camera with a stronger zoom so I let her take the photos.
And lastly…the night before we left, in the rocky side yard we spotted a Gila Monster (pronounced heel-la monster), a poisonous lizard and apparently a rare sighting.
The lizard moves slow so we could get a good look at it and take photos. According to Wikipedia, it is the only venomous lizard native to the United States.
Each flower, each bird, each animal is a gift. I marvel at nature’s beauty and God’s amazing creativity. And I am grateful.