The Lawlyes Log: Catching Up

A lot of friends have noted that I haven't been keeping the blog up to date. Well, it has not been due to a lack of interest or because there has been nothing to report. I just have been having so many technical difficulties with Blogger that it wasn't worth the hassle. Supposedly, Blogger is now "new and improved." So, I will give it another try and let you know what we have been up since my last post in October.

Yesterday, Carolyn and I returned from camping in Tucson. We went south for a little warmer weather.

We spent as much time outdoors as possible. We hiked in the Sonoran desert one day and on the Pima Canyon Trail the next.

As you can see, Carolyn loves saguaros. We don't have them in Prescott. Our altitude is too high and the saguaros' nothern boundary is about 20 miles south of where we live.

We spent a day at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum . It's a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden. Exhibits re-create the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert and display 300+ animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants on 21 acres of desert.

Just a week earlier the museum was blanketed by a very rare snowfall in Tucson.

By the time we arrived, however, the temperature was in the low 70's.

One of our favorite experiences was seeing the Harris's Hawk. This hawk is native to the area. Unlike other hawks, it lives in a family of 4-6 members. They hunt together and shows signs of genuine affections for one another.

Here three of them share a common roost (unusual for birds of prey).

We watched as the family of five hunted in coordination with each other and saw them allow the alpha female to take over the catch found by a junior member of the family.

We also enjoyed the hummingbird aviary, an enclosure where you can walk among different species of hummingbirds displaying little wariness of humans. We watched a female Costa's Hummingbird build her nest by snatching fiber from the sweater of a lady sitting nearby. Here you can see the hummingbird taking fiber directly from the woman's hand. Hummingbirds typically use spider webs.

I enjoy the endless variety of cacti, the desert has to offer. Here are just a few we saw.

This is the Organ Pipe cactus.