Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

This afternoon we visited the the fabulous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a 98-acre zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, and natural history museum.

This museum turned out to be a real treat, We both enjoyed the two miles of walking paths covering 21 acres of desert landscape.  Much of the walkway was paved.  We arrived just in time to catch the Raptor Free Flight demonstration with multiple birds in action.  On command all the birds (which appeared identical to the one below) would commence flight in a seemingly random fashion.  Some would land on cactus, some in trees and others in several bird handlers gloved hand.

We saw mountain lions, cougars, big horn sheep and other wildlife native to Arizona mountains. There were also many birds on display including the road runner below, hummingbirds in their own aviary, and other birds in a separate aviary.

The extensive botanical gardens allowed us learn the names of the various cactus plants including this Teddy Bear Cholla below.

The view to the west was spectacular.

We decided upon leaving to take a back road towards Tucson.  Several hikers were climbing this highest point, to view the fast approaching sunset.

The eastward view atop the mountain gave us a glimpse of Tucson down in the valley.